


Kept Safe

by Whendoestheshipsail



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, BDSM, Blow Jobs, Cock & Ball Torture, Cock Cages, Come Eating, Come Swallowing, Dom Bucky Barnes, Dubious Consent, Gay Steve Rogers, Hand Jobs, Handcuffs, M/M, Masochist Steve Rogers, Nipple Clamps, Nipple Torture, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Prostate Milking, Religious Guilt, Rimming, Ruined Orgasms, Steve Rogers is a kinky bastard, Steve loves his cock cage, Sub Steve Rogers, and horny, and now the good stuff, and people in general all need therapy but that's just me on my soapbox, anti steggy and it feels so good, because canon isn't my problem you endgame bastards, blame the russos for my hatred as it used to be apathy, fleshlight, frankly i think any version of steve needs therapy, i think i'm actually getting more depraved rather than less, i think of him as well meaning, if you don't know who it is don't even bother, maybe? some canon shenanigans probably required but IDK for sure yet, sadistic but didn't really know it Bucky Barnes, shockingly i've written a story where Steve has some bizarre sexual proclivities, some people think this bucky is a total asshole., this steve also may need a lot of therapy, yet coercive, yet virginal as he's only ever wanted one man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2020-11-26 09:02:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 54,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20927618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whendoestheshipsail/pseuds/Whendoestheshipsail
Summary: Steve and Bucky are friends. Best Friends. If asked, Bucky would say he knows absolutely everything about Steve. Except when it comes to sex. Steve lives such a monastic existence that Bucky doesn't know if he likes girls, boys, or none of the above. For all he knows, Steve may have no interest in sex whatsoever.But then a mission goes wrong, Steve is bleeding out from a wound to the femoral artery and Bucky is trying to stop the bleeding when his hand brushes against metal. Where there most definitely shouldn't be metal. Or a padlock. And most definitely not a torturously small cage.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InterruptedCadence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterruptedCadence/gifts), [Mitsususu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitsususu/gifts), [thedishandthespoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedishandthespoon/gifts), [CanadianGarrison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanadianGarrison/gifts), [ModLacy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModLacy/gifts), [Unicorn24601](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unicorn24601/gifts).

“You know she’s in Germany,” Bucky hears Natasha saying, (well, shouting since they’re on the plane) while Steve is buckling his helmet.

“Back with the helmet?” Bucky shouts, and Steve looks at him, frowns and turns back to Nat, needing to finish one conversation before he gets dragged into another.

“I don’t care where she is. And I don’t live in Germany or near Germany so stop pestering me.” Steve says, snapping at her. Nat gives Bucky a raised brow, which manages to say: Can you believe he doesn’t want me to set him up?

Bucky rolls his eyes and huffs, which she damned well knows means: Leave it the hell alone, it’s none of your business.

She pops her gum at Bucky and stalks off.

“What’s wrong with the helmet?” Steve asks, sounding almost anxious about it.

Bucky stands up, moves closer to him, gestures with a thumb for Steve to turn his head to the right, which he does. He stands there patiently and waits for Bucky to get the strap sorted. “There’s nothing wrong with it. You just haven’t worn it in awhile. I like the long hair.” He winks at Steve, mainly because it makes Steve blush which Bucky finds amusing.

“You would,” he grumbles, and Bucky looks Steve over like he’s checking him out.

Steve doesn’t check Bucky out. As far as he can tell (and this has been his running theory since the days of Spam) Steve doesn’t check anyone out. Steve doesn’t look at girls or boys. He lives like a god damned monk.

His place is obsessively tidy, almost monastically bare. He exercises a ton, he eats healthy unless he’s with Bucky or the group (and not even good healthy but optimally balanced protein shakes and kale with olive oil. Like, what’s the fucking point of it all if that’s what they’re coming back to?)

Steve probably checked out Peggy, but everyone checked out Peggy. Between the lipstick and the ball busting attitude, who didn’t want to know what she was like in the sack? He’s pretty sure Steve doesn’t know what she was like in the sack. There were a few frantic questions about fondue at one point, but Bucky doesn’t know what that was about and the idea of Steve having sex with someone made him so crazed with jealousy he didn’t have it in him to be helpful. He’d sent him off to ask Howard instead.

Bucky heads back to get some ammo before the mission but Steve grabs him. “Wait. What about the helmet?”

Bucky shrugs. “Do _you_ like it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then I think you should leave it off. It’s dated.”

A moment goes by while Steve thinks. He steps closer to Bucky. “Will you buckle it, I can’t get it?”

“Why did you even ask my opinion?” he sighs, and his fingers touch Steve’s, pushing his hands out of the way, and getting his fingers on the straps.

Steve closes his eyes, nostrils flaring as Bucky gives the straps a small tug. Steve moves forward, like he’s actually been pulled off balance and Bucky puts a hand in the middle of Steve’s chest to stop him crashing into Bucky’s chest.

“You’re such a mook,” Bucky mumbles as Steve clears his throat. His eyes are open now. “Something is messed up higher. Let me see it,” he says, already pulling it off of Steve’s head. He takes it to the light and untangles the straps. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Steve adjusting his suit at the crotch with a deeply pained expression on his face.

“Third leg giving you trouble?” he jokes, and sets the helmet back on Steve’s head. He straps it easily enough and Steve steps away, almost hunching away from Bucky. Which is weird. Bucky doesn’t like that at all. 

“I spilled something on my suit,” Steve says, with a shrug.

“Uh huh. When are we there?”

“Twenty?” Steve guesses, walking away. Bucky goes to get ammo.

“You should be helping me set him up. If I’m not setting him up then I’m going to move on to you,” Natasha says, before he’s even close to the weapons locker. Ambush. 

He glares at her. “Don’t even. I’ve got enough problems without _you _trying to get me dates,” Bucky tells her.

“Should I be offended? What does that mean?”

“Banner?” he says.

“You,” she replies.

“Exactly! You’re not helping your case at all. Terrible taste in men.” He gets the extra ammo he wants, pats himself down for knives and guns, out of habit really, and walks away. Steve is sitting down, staring at the floor or maybe his crotch, who knows.

“This plane is too fucking small,” Bucky says, sitting next to him. He bumps his leg against Steve’s.

“Are you worried? It’s very safe.”

That gets him to do a double take. “What? No, I just mean because Nat won’t shut up about setting everyone up. She needs to worry about her own dating life.”

“She wants to set you up, huh?” Steve asks, turning the helmet around in his hand.

“The suggestion has been made. And dismissed. So, you’re not wearing the helmet?”

“I am.” He shrugs. “Just put it on too early.” 

“Well, I’m not helping you put it back on,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes. He can feel the anxiety coming off of Steve and he isn’t sure why. He wonders if other people can see it or if he just knows Steve so well that he’s attuned enough to see through the perfectly stoic and heroic exterior.

Sam sits across from them. “Uh oh. Why is Steve givingyou the puppy dog eyes this time?” Sam asks Bucky.

“You need to put his helmet on him,” Bucky says.

“Nah. That’s your job.” Sam gives Steve a look that Bucky can’t quite figure out. Bucky gives up. He doesn’t care. He closes his eyes, rests his head on Steve’s shoulder. Steve puts a hand on Bucky’s thigh, squeezing gently and then staying still so he can nap. Steve’s good like that.

He hears Sam sigh then get up and leave. “What’s his problem?” Bucky mutters.

“Nothing. Bathroom.”

“Never eat three hours before a mission,” Bucky says. “Or before being frozen.”

Steve goes stiff.

“Don’t tense up. You’re my pillow. No cryo jokes. Sorry.” Bucky doesn’t nap but he does like resting against Steve so he keeps his eyes closed until it’s time to go. Besides, then no one wants to talk to him _and_ they leave Steve alone.

Steve likes quiet time before missions. He always has. It settles him. And Steve needs to be settled before he goes out there and does stupid stuff.One of them pretending to sleep so they’re both left alone is something they did in the war and is just one more little habit they go back into without needing to talk about it.

An hour later, Bucky is waiting for Steve to come out of the suspected Hydra weapons facility. Steve still has his ear piece in and working, and he’s breathing in Bucky’s ear as he comes running out of the factory, two guys on his ass.

Bucky kills the two guys who come out after Steve, and scans until he’s at the tree line. He’s waiting for Steve to give the extraction signal but it doesn’t come. Instead, Steve grunts loudly and Bucky hears him hitting the ground. Two bullets discharge and Bucky is up like a shot. “I’m on the move to Steve. Steve, copy?”

There’s only breathing. It’s different now. Heavy breathing and it’s gotta be a trick of his imagination, but Bucky swears he can hear blood spilling out of Steve. He makes it into the clearing and Steve is on the ground, a dead soldier next to him, shot through the eye. A massive pool of blood surrounds Steve.

“Extraction needed immediately. Steve’s been hit. Looks like femoral artery.” Bucky’s down and grabbing a clotting agent and gauze from his pack before the words are out. He’s pressing a hand high up to Steve’s groin as he clicks on his light to see what the fuck he’s doing.

“You’re okay, buddy. You with me?” he asks.

“Don’t,” Steve gasps, reaching for Bucky’s hand, trying to shove it off of him.

“You’re shot, pal. I’m trying to help you. Stay calm. Extraction is on the way. _When_?” he demands.

“Three minutes. We’re moving your way,” Natasha responds, in his ear piece. He hears gunfire from the other side of the drop zone. He sprinkles the congealing agent on Steve and rips open the material of his suit to make sure he’s got it all. There’s just so much fucking blood.

There’s a black cord tied around Steve’s hips and he takes a knife and cuts it then wipes away more blood. He’s pressing hard and waiting and he pulls the string, having no idea what it’s connected to and Steve grunts and his hand goes down to his crotch.

“Don’t,” he says, again. He looks panicked. Bucky looks. There’s blood everywhere. It’s possible he’s hit there, too. “Sorry, pal. Modesty is for people who haven’t been shot and aren’t bleeding out.” He rips the suit again and feels metal brush his knuckles. He should be apologizing for touching Steve’s junk, not encountering metal, which is utterly bizarre. He lifts the suit, adjusts the flashlight. Christ, if Sam or Nat shows up and he’s shining a light on Steve’s dick, he’ll never live it down.

_What. The. Fuck._

“Shit. Don’t,” Steve says, again, and turns his head to the side when he realizes it’s too late.

There’s a massive metal _thing_ covering Steve’s cock. It’s even got a damned padlock on it. He clicks off the comm unit. “Do you have akey?” he demands. “Help is coming and they’re gonna find it if you don’t have a damned key.”

“Neck.”

Bucky reaches in to Steve’s uniform, yanks the chain off his neck and puts the key into the lock. He undoes the padlock and moves Steve’s dick around until it comes out of the cage. He drops it next to him, tries to get him a hint of modesty, and that’s when Sam drops in, shoves Bucky out of the way and does a better triage than he ever could.

He picks up the cage and shoves it into his bag and gets out of the way. Steve is conscious but barely. He goes up beside him, kisses him on the forehead because he looks absolutely distraught, and Bucky knows it’s not the injury but because Bucky discovered whatever the hell he’s got going on _down there_. “It’s okay. You’re fine. You’re gonna be fine. Hang on, you hear me? Steve? I’m fucking ordering you. Hang _on_.”

As soon as they’re on the Quinjet Sam gets him stable with a blood transfusion, and they cauterize the wound until they can get him into surgery. It’s only thirty minutes but Bucky stays with him, holding his hand, running his fingers through his hair. Steve’s going to be okay.

And then Bucky is going to get some fucking answers.


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky wakes up with his head on Steve’s hospital bed. Steve has a hand in his hair, which is nice, and then starts tracing patterns on the top of his metal hand which tickles just enough that it gets him all the way conscious.

“I drooled all over your bed,” he says, wiping his mouth and wondering what the fuck time it is. Steve pulls his hand back and gives him a goofy smile.

“You have a waffle print from the blanket all over your cheek.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have shaved. How do you feel?” he stands up and stretches. Steve watches him then looks away, fingers drumming idly on the blanket. Well, it’s not idle. It might look idle to other people, but that’s some finger tapping panic going on.

“I’m fine. They say I’ll be better in a day or two. I guess massive amounts of bloodloss take it out of me.” He clears his throat, scratches his neck and Bucky almost wonders if he’s about to break out in hives. Shit, here they go. “Could you do me a favor and not bring it up while we’re here. Or ever?” Steve says, smile wobbly.

And yeah, he feels bad for Steve, but come the fuck on. He’s got his damn dick locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Questions need to be asked. “You get while we’re here. Of course we’re going to fucking talk about it.Any idea when you’re gonna get out?”

“Couple of hours I think. I’m basically healed,” he says, head thunking backwards. He presses the palms of his hand to his eyes. There’s an IV line in his hand and Bucky wants to kiss his skin, get the needle out of him and get Steve the fuck out of here. Steve hates hospitals and Bucky hates needles and machines and between the two of them they’re like a pair of cats in a room full of rocking chairs. 

“The joy of the serum. I was fucking terrified. There was so much blood.” Steve looks a little pale but otherwise pretty good. “I’m gonna find coffee. You want coffee?”

“I do.” 

“Good. If I can get a pastry or six, I’ll get them also. Then I’ll come back and when you’re released I’ll take you home.” He says it flatly. There’s no getting out of that and Steve better not even try it.

“Thanks, Buck.”

“Of course,” he says, smiling. From the look on Steve’s face, he’s not doing as good of a job projecting ‘everything is fine’ vibes as he’s trying to. Fort Fucking Knox. On his dick. Who would be fine with that?

He leaves the hospital. Hospital coffee is fucking terrible and there’s some hipster place down the street according to google maps. He’d stayed up with everyone waiting for news on Steve, then waited for everyone to leave and then he’d passed out.

Now Steve was out of the woods. He was going to be released. There was no more stalling. He had to figure out what the fuck Steve was doing with a god damned cock cage on. And not even that, but on a mission. What if he’d been kicked in the nuts? That’s just stupid. And Reckless. Deranged.

His coffee cup collapses in his hand and coffee goes everywhere. “Motherfucker!” he yells, then has to apologize and, of course, someone comments that he looked a lot like that Bucky Barnes. This was why he wore gloves. Then no one was quite sure. 

The barista gave him a new cup of coffee and he wiped it up as best he could with paper towels before some guy came out with a mop and glared at him. “Sorry. I’ve been at the hospital all night,” he said, to the gal who gave him new coffee. She’s alsokind enough to get him a piece of paper and a pencil so he can write down his thoughts while he drank his coffee. Her phone number was on the back. Well, it wasn’t all bad.

_Right_. He needed to write down _questions_. He had a lot of fucking questions. And he needed to be calm. He could already tell Steve was gonna go squirrelly on him given half a chance. And this was what his ma had always done when shit got complicated with four kids, lots to do and occasional deprivation. You make a fucking list. Or you write down questions. So that was what he was going to do and it was gonna be just fine.

“It ain’t gonna be fine,” he muttered, staring at the blank page. He wrote them down as they came to him.

How long does he wear it for? How long has he been wearing it for? Why does he fucking wear it? At what point in Steve’s life did this genius idea come to him? He scratches that last one out and tries to rephrase it so it’s a bit less judgmental. Does he get hard? Does he wear it only on missions? Is it a kinky sex thing?

He pauses over the last one. Doesn’t it _have_ to be a kinky sex thing? Like, by definition, once one’s dick is involved and you’re doing something painful to it, isn’t that kinky? Is that a fetish? And how much does he want to bet that if he asked Steve, he wouldn’t fucking know. He’d probably give Bucky that stupid naive look and ask what a fetish was.

The pen has left a blob on the page next to the word kinky. Does it bother Bucky if it’s a kinky sex thing? He imagines Peggy putting Steve in a cock cage and giving a cruel glare. She probably stepped on his balls while wearing heels, too. She fucking shot at him just because some hot secretary gave him a kiss. Weirdly enough, this is the first time he actually thinks he hates her.

He doesn’t know why this is the thing that pushes him fully into the _I hate Peggy Carter_ fan club, but it is. It really fucking is. As if Steve didn’t have enough shit to deal with, he wound up having his first sexual experiences with some dominatrix who got him all twisted up so he’s now locking his dick away like a total fucking nut job.

Bucky isn’t a prude. He’s so far from a prude he’s pretty sure he ain’t ever getting into heaven if there is one. He loves sex. He’ll try anything once. He’s fucked a guy, been fucked by a guy, had a menage or three, done all kinds of fucked up shit when he was under the control of the Red Room, but he’s _never_ wanted to put his dick in a fucking cage. And, if someone asked him to try it, there’d be a resounding no and possibly a violent response.

And, this wasn’t only a cage, but such a heavy fucking cage that he needed a damn string to keep the weight of it from hurting too much. What the ever-loving _fuck_?

He downs his coffee, walks furiously around the block and comes back, gets Steve a coffee and three donuts and heads back to the hospital with his list of questions. He pauses on the way in and throws the list away.

Him being upset or bitter or whatever isn’t going to help. He needs to talk to Steve and listen. Mainly listen. And be more understanding than he usually is. He should channel Sam. How would Sam react to finding out Steve was wearing a metal thing on his dick?

He can see Sam now, arms crossed, looking like nothing shocks him, asking open-ended questions and radiating sympathy. He can also kind of imagine Sam asking Steve if he’s lost his damned mind, but it’s possible Bucky is projecting. Onto his imaginary version of Sam.

Fuck this.

He takes the stairs because he hates elevators. Probably because they’re metal cages. He waits in the stairwell for a minute to get himself calm. He rolls his shoulders and takes a deep breath. The key thing is to remember the look on Steve’s face when Bucky left an hour ago. He looked scared. Scared and vulnerable and absolutely terrified Bucky wouldn’t care about him anymore. And that was never gonna happen no matter what weird shit that fucking Peggy Carter got him into.

So, he’s good. It’s fine. He goes the rest of the way up the stairs.

When he goes into Steve’s room, he finds Steve sitting up in bed, legs over the side, a pair of sweat pants beside him. “Just in time, huh?” he puts the coffee and pastries down and picks up the pants, goes down to one knee so he can help Steve put them on.

“What are you doing?” Steve demands.

“You get one guess,” he says, pulling the fabric over one foot and onto him. He’s gonna be nice, he isn’t gonna be non-sarcastic. “Can you lift the other leg or should I do it?” he asks, because it’s the one with the injury, and it will likely hurt like a son of a bitch to lift. “I’ll just do it. Don’t strain it, yeah?”

“I can do it,” Steve says.

Bucky takes a deep breath and puts a hand on Steve’s knee. Steve goes wide eyed. “Let me help you. You’ve done so much to help me over the last few years and I’ve done fuck all to return the favor. I can get you dressed… and then we’re even,” he jokes.

“Very funny. I think we’re pretty even,” Steve says, because he’s nice like that.

“Whatever.” He bunches up the fabric and puts it onto Steve’s other foot then pulls up his pants to his knees. Steve puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. It’s his metal arm which is a hell of a lot more finely calibrated than it needs to be. He can tell that Steve is sweating, his temperature is raised and he’s trembling lightly. He looks up, sees his pupils are blown wide in fear.

“You’re okay. We’re gonna be okay. And, I got you a maple bar. Also, one with sprinkles. Plus, a chocolate thing. I don’t get pastries for people when they’re on my shit list.” He smiles. Steve grimaces. “I’m gonna put one arm around your waist and get you standing, we pull up the pants, you sit back down again and voila, you’re a civilized member of society again.”

“No. Buck. I can do this.”

Steve is such an idiot. “I love you more than anyone, but you’re being a fucking moron. I’m going to help you now. The end.”

Steve shakes his head, his cheeks go red, but he doesn’t vocally object again and that’s good enough. Bucky puts an arm around him, hauls him up to his feet. Steve gasps in pain as he stands on his leg and Bucky pulls up his pants. He does a very good job of keeping his expression perfectly blank when the fabric snags on Steve’s hard cock, lodging under his balls or something.

Steve sits back down. He won’t even look at Bucky. They just need to get this shit over with. A fucking hard on is _not_ a big deal. A cock cage, now _that_, is a big deal. He leans over Steve, untying his gown at the back and pulling it off of him. He steps between his legs and gets the shirt ready.

“I can’t,” Steve says, sounding weak.

“Hold onto me. It’s probably low blood pressure or the drugs or something.”

Steve puts hands on his waist, his head goes forward, onto Bucky’s chest and he’s breathing in heavy pants. Steve breaks out into goosebumps and his hand moves, adjusting his cock in his pants as if he’s helpless not to, or so out of it that it hadn’t even occurred to him that Bucky would very obviously notice and be able to see him. 

His hand stays there, near his cock and Bucky tries very hard not to give it away that he knows exactly what Steve’s problem is now. It isn’t the drugs. Everyone gets a hard on when they shouldn’t. It just happens sometimes. Should he put him out of his misery and tell him? Will that make Steve even more uncomfortable?

Steve keeps one hand on Bucky, wraps it around his waist in fact, head bowed, breathing in shakily.

“It’s okay, pal. Just give yourself a minute to steady.” He puts a hand on Steve’s head, stroking through his thick hair. The hand twitches. He’s gripping his cock, does a stroke, a god damned _stroke_ up and down while Bucky is right there and then almost panics.Which is fair. If the situation was reversed, Bucky might be a little stressed out too, if he was so horned up he was gonna jerk off in front of someone because he couldn’t help himself.

“Bucky, go. I don’t feel well. I might be sick.”

Bucky doesn’t move. Steve’s breathing is becoming more erratic. Steve tries to lift his head and Bucky’s grip tightens, flesh hand tight in his hair, the other on Steve’s neck, keeping him close and still. “Stay there.” He orders, softly. Bucky isn’t quite sure what the plan is here. But, he isn’t letting go.

Steve is hard, he’s practically shaking with desire and Bucky feels…well, he feels many different things in response to this development and not a single one of them is appropriate for the hospital.

“Buck. I can’t. _Please_.” Steve tightens his grip on Bucky’s waist and then lets go with a small hiccoughing type of sound. Steve puts his hand on his own thigh, squeezes so hard that he can see Steve’s fingers go white.

“You’re fine. We’re fine. Deep breath,” Bucky says. Steve swears softly. Another touch to his cock, a stroke and a squeeze. Steve swallows audibly, then seems to get a hold of himself (no pun intended) and puts his other hand on his thigh. Both of his hands are locked down tight to his thighs so he doesn’t do something revealing.

Although, at this point, unless Steve pulls his dick out and comes, there isn’t much left to reveal. He may seem a little in control of himself but he isn’t. God, what if he did? Bucky’s brain goes straight into the gutter and his own dick gets hard. How fucking hot would it be if Steve just couldn’t control himself and jerked off in front of him? No. No, that’s the absolute _worst_ thing Bucky can think right now. This isn’t something sexy, but a symptom of how messed up Steve is.

“How long have you been wearing it?” he asks, and bends down to kiss the top of Steve’s head, wanting him to know it’s okay.

“So long that I don’t know how to be out of it,” he says, miserably. “I need it back.”

“I don’t have it,” he finally says. Steve shoves him. He’s still weak so Bucky doesn’t really budge. But he does step back after a moment. He just wants to make the point that he chose to move instead of Steve moving him. It’s petty. They do that.

“Don’t lie to me. You took it with you and you haven’t left the hospital.”

Okay, well that’s pretty good reasoning. “I could have thrown it away,” he says, mildly sheepish for lying to him. He feels worse when Steve gives him a look. Betrayal with a hint of carefully banked anger. 

“You didn’t, though. You wouldn’t. You’d want to _know_,” Steve says, bitter and like it’s Bucky who’s got the problem. Which really pisses him off.

“Bet your ass I want to know. It was her, wasn’t it? I suppose if there’s at least one good thing that came out of this losing-decades-_fuckery_, at least it got you away from _her_!” As soon as Bucky says it, he wants to take it back. He holds out a hand (he makes sure it’s the metal one, hoping it gets some subliminal sympathy for all he’s gone through) and takes a breath. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t the right way to say that.”

“That’s not actually an apology,” Steve finally says.

“No, I guess it wasn’t.” He isn’t apologizing. Fuck Peggy Carter.

Steve shakes his head in disgust. “God. Bucky, she doesn’t even have anything to do with this. But, Jesus Christ, I talk to _one_ woman in all that time and you just assume I’m so pathetic I do whatever she wants?”

“Hey. I had more than enough treatments of penicillin back in the war to know that people will make a lot of bad decisions when they’re thinking with their dick. I’m not trying to insult you. But, if it wasn’t her, then who? When? How’d you even learn about such a thing? Why would you _try_ it? And then keep _doing_ it. Is it just for missions?” He goes down to his knees, literally gets on the floor in front of Steve, begging him. “Tell me. I’m worried for you. Please.”

The door opens. He knows Nat’s long suffering sigh anywhere. “Fine. No more trying to set you both up. Doc’s out here waiting to discharge you, was trying not to interrupt. I told him he’d be here all day if we left it to you two so here we are. Time to go home.” 

Bucky gets up. He gets up close to Steve, puts a finger under his chin so he makes eye contact with him, like he used to do before the war when Bucky ordered Steve to do things and he did. Now, _those_ were the good old days. “This isn’t done. We _will_ have this conversation. And it will happen immediately.”

Steve knocks his hand away. “I’m not 90 lbs anymore.”

Bucky sneers at him. “Don’t I fucking know it,” he says, and shoves out of the room.

“And to think I volunteered to take you boys home,” Nat mutters. 


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky storms out of the room and goes up to the nurses station. “Could I trouble you for a piece of paper and a pen?” he asks in his nicest tone. The nurse points to a cup of pens and then a pile of small pads of paper left by a funeral home.

Nothing tacky about that.

He says thanks, takes them both and sees Nat come out of the room, Steve behind her. He looks a little pale. He crams the pen and paper into his back pocket and goes over, gets an arm around Steve to help him get out of there.

“Isn’t he supposed to be in a wheelchair until he’s out the doors or something?” Bucky grouses.

Nat shrugs and it seems to mean ‘he’s Captain America what can you do?’

“You charm the nurses into letting you out of here on your own two feet, huh, Steve?”

“Yeah, Buck. That’s me, constant charmer of ladies.” An unpleasant silence falls between them.

They ride the elevator down in silence. They get into Nat’s car. Bucky hates that fucking backseat more than almost anything at the moment. “It is so fucking small back here. Why wouldn’t you want something bigger?”

“It’s nothing to do with you, Buck. Be grateful she’s giving us a ride and shut the hell up,” Steve says.

“Um,” Nat says, because she’s never heard Steve talk to him that way.

“Oh my fucking god, you’re such a punk. This has nothing to do with…_anything_ else,” Bucky says, realizing Steve thought he was making some passive aggressive comment in front of Natasha.

“Seems like you’ve got an opinion on stuff that doesn’t really involve you, so there’s _one_ similarity.”

“Great. So you’ve decided to go straight to passive aggressive and defensive?” Bucky says.

“Is this passive?” Steve is glaring at him in the mirror.

Nat turns on the radio. She searches for her phone to get the music going.

“Anyone like Bon Jovi?”

“Who’s Bon Jovi?” they both say at the same time.

Music blares out of the stereo. “Oh yeah, I’ve heard this song,” Bucky says.

Steve throws him a suspicious look.

Bucky shrugs. “Bars, clubs. You go out and you hear stuff.” He’d swear this seems to piss Steve off even more.

Bucky takes out his pad of paper and pen. Steve turns around, glares harder. “I swear to god, if you make a fucking _list_ I will go ballistic. Worse than Rhonda Hurley.”

Bucky thinks about that for a minute, waiting and hoping the memory is going to slot into place. He sees Nat thinking about asking. She’s desperately curious. She turns up the volume even more and doesn’t. She’s got a good sense of self-preservation.

Steve reaches back and yanks the pad of paper out of his hands then winces at the pain in his groin from making the fast movement.Serves him right. “Funeral home?” Steve snarls.

“It was there! It was free!”

Steve rolls down the window, his whole face is red. “Captain America can’t litter out of a car window,” Nat says. She rolls the window back up. They drive in silence while Steve contemplates exploding. It’s the set of his shoulders and the careful breathing that gives him away. God, he’s so damned easy to read.

Who the fuck was Rhonda Hurley? It isn’t coming to him. Maybe that’s not even the important point. Sometimes he can get a memory if he comes at it from a different angle. So, what are some of the worst things Steve ever did to him because he felt like Bucky was being a judgmental asshole trying to run his life?

“Was that when you put all my underwear in the icebox and I couldn’t find ‘em for three days?”

“No.” He growls, throwing Bucky another glare.

“You know your face can freeze that way….Was that when you threw out all my booze and replaced it with water?”

A pained sigh. “_No_.”

They’re getting close to Bucky’s place and he’s pretty sure he isn’t going to figure it out. “Shouldn’t we be going to Steve’s?”

Steve throws him another glare. Oh, right. He wants his medieval torture device back. Someone must have told him they’d taken Bucky’s pack to his place and brought him clothes so he wouldn’t leave Steve alone at the hospital. “Go to Bucky’s,” Steve reiterates.

“It’s been fun,” she says, as they pull up in front of his place. Steve gets out very slowly and carefully, Nat bracing him, and then doesn’t move the seat for Bucky to get out.

“You’re a fucking child. Do you want to go in or what?” Bucky says. Steve makes the chair slide up and Bucky stumbles, ungracefully, out of the car. Steve is already heading up the walk.

Nat rolls down the window. “I’d tell you to call me if you need anything, but I don’t want to. Let me know when you boys work it out and go back to snuggling again.”

“Very fucking funny,” he follows Steve to the door.

“Was it when you put that lizard in my wash bag and I fell over and hit my head on the bath?”

Steve looks sheepish. “No. I felt bad about that one.”

Bucky huffs out a breath. “My head felt worse. And yeah, I know. I got back rubs for a month. Hell, you can do that one again if you’ll turn up that sweet after.”

Steve had been so guilty and loving after Bucky’d gotten a concussion. He’d been constantly pressing close, and touching him, bringing him tea and trying to make amends. Hell of a lot better than this attitude.

Bucky gets the key in the door and puts an arm around Steve to help him get up the stairs so he doesn’t have to put any kind of strain on his groin. “Was that when you switched out the vaseline for that menthol stuff because you knew I used it to jerk off?”

“Yeah.”

Bucky grunts. Even now it isn’t all that funny. “That fucking hurt.” Bucky can’t remember why Steve did it. What injustice he blamed Bucky for. They stop on the first landing, Steve listing to the side, still weak, breath a touch deeper with pain. Bucky goes with him as Steve leans against the wall, runs a hand up and down his back like he used to during an asthma attack. “At least you can breathe now….Stevie, I can’t fucking remember. Why the vaseline switch?”

Steve puts his other hand around Bucky’s waist, not pulling him into a hug or anything, because he’s still pissed, but he’s always so upset when Bucky doesn’t remember stuff. Seems to take it personally, even though his capture by Hydra and all the bullshit after has nothing to do with Steve. If Bucky could do his life all over again, he’d make the same decisions— he wouldn’t have left the war, he would’ve gone after Zola, that was all Bucky. Steve was worth it. Hell, half the time Bucky doesn’t even want to ask what the missing memory is because Steve gets so down about it.

“You swore you wouldn’t try to get me out on any more double dates and then took us to that make out place with the Harvelle sisters and she gave you a hand job while I had to sit there with the sister who despised me and listen to you panting half the night.”

“Oh yeah. Took her so long to come I was ready to go again,” he says, like it’s not a big deal. Steve’s hand drops. He even makes to take a step away but he needs Bucky to get up the stairs. He can tell Steve is trying to figure out if he can do it without him.

“Why isn’t there a fucking handrail?”

“I’ll take it up with the super,” Bucky says. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so blunt, but sex isn’t a big deal. It’s apparently a big old shameful deal to Steve, and considering they’re going to be talking about it, Bucky thought it might be a good idea to put some details of his own out there.

But, that might not be all that helpful. Almost every time Steve had done something truly vengeful was after Bucky had made time with a girl.

They move towards the next set of stairs. “Let’s be clear. You’re going to give me my property and then I’m leaving.” He’s even using his Captain America voice. Like Bucky might say ‘yes, sir!’ and salute him. Maybe a one finger salute.

It takes everything in Bucky to not goad him by saying something about how cute Steve gets when he’s acting all tough. But, he doesn’t. Because, Steve is pissed enough that he likely will hit him and it will definitely hurt. He settles for, “We’re going to _talk_. I’m not taking you home until we do. There’s stairs down too, you know. You aren’t leaving until we hash it out.”

“I’ll slide down on my ass if I have to and I can get a fucking Uber without you.”

“This is nuts,” Bucky says, and he stops halfway up the next set of steps, presses Steve to the wall where Steve goes all wide-eyed and flustered. He puts hands on Bucky’s shoulders, as Bucky draws back from him enough to see his face. “What are you doing?” he demands, sounding almost breathless as he looks at Bucky’s mouth.

Oh.

_Oh_.

_Oh shit!_ He was going to try to say something about how he cares about Steve, that he’s the only thing in the world that matters to him, just try to take the tension down before they got upstairs, so that maybe this wouldn’t be a shit show of an argument. 

But, the way Steve is responding to him…the growing bulge in Steve’s sweats (again!) really answers a lot of things he’s kind of always known, but tried to ignore or reason away.

When he was just Bucky (back in the worse-than-people-like-to-say-it-was days) he could do that. Now, he’s been trained and he’s even done a seduction mission or three and he knows what desire looks like.

He’s clinical and calculating enough after his Red Room training that the information gets taken in and processed instead of shoved away or ignored like Bucky, Steve’s childhood friend all those decades ago, would have done.

Steve wants him. The hard-on in the hospital wasn’t just a physical reaction that was inappropriately timed, or a response he had because he got free of the cage, it’s _Bucky_.

And then he’s almost kissing Steve, lips so close they brush against Steve’s softly open, lips parted and willing mouth, as if he has to make sure Steve feels this way. Just to know. “I just want you to be happy, Steve. You deserve it and I want that for you,” he whispers.

And this is Steve, Steve who he basically knows as well as he knows himself, Steve who is steady and reliable and who lets Bucky drape himself all over him, cuddle up to him and hug him. Steve is his person and it’s been a long fucking time since he’s questioned how he interacts with Steve and if Steve’s personal space is being respected.

Steve doesn’t get personal space from Bucky. Never fucking has. Hell, Bucky’s pretty sure Steve wouldn’t want it. And now they’re here in this stairwell and Steve is panting, all sweet and restless, aroused and his hands are shaking as they hold onto Bucky and, of course he reacts to it, of course he’s now wanting and hard too.

He’s always wanted everything from Steve so if this is on offer then he’ll take it too. He lets himself press against Steve, body to body, weight gentle and not on Steve’s injured side, but he finds Steve’s cock with his and lets him feel it. Letting Steve know that the desire is mutual.

Steve’s dick is a rock. A giant, fucking monster of a thing pressed against his groin and he feels it twitch, Steve’s hips thrust forward but stop. “Get off me,” Steve says, the words sound painful. As if saying them hurts. He’s flustered. His inexperience radiates off of him. Bucky notes it in the way he breathes, the color on his cheeks, the way he licks his lips and casts glances at Bucky like his whole world is being turned upside down.

Bucky backs away from him, helps get Steve up the stairs like nothing has happened. He doesn’t move because Steve wants him to but because his training kicked in: retreat to evaluate when a new situation arises unexpectedly (especially one as good as a surprisingly willing sex partner who shows up out of nowhere as they’re usually assassins or spies).

He clears his throat, mentally slaps himself and they go up the stairs. What does this new information mean? How does it change the mission? There is no mission. This isn’t that. _Shit_. Bucky can feel himself going calm and a little dark, falling into a certain headspace, an extreme version of himself who sees this as something to exploit. His weapon self importing this new information and assessing it. How can he use this information to make Steve more fully his?

Bucky shuts that down, packs it away, because he is his own person and that’s not how he is with Steve or people he cares about. At least, Bucky tries to do that. But, he’s already got a new theory on how Steve has wound up in his caged lifestyle, based upon this new evidence.

Steve is an inexperienced, confused, sexually frustrated man who just doesn’t know what he’s missing. It actually makes some sense how Steve has gotten himself into this mess. He gets hard. The serum amplifies that and makes it worse and Steve took drastic measures to make sure he could control it.

He’s never even been with a woman, he doesn’t know how good it feels to be balls deep in someone, doesn’t know what it’s like to be without the cage and just get used to walking around with a cock that gets hard on it’s own unknowable schedule and causes the occasional humiliation and stress.

Steve’s always been a prude, and no girl ever wanted him before the serum. Then they did, and he’s got this giant dick with a hair trigger, as well as a shit ton of anxiety, the world’s attention on him, and he’s just gone a little screwy. Although, this doesn’t mean he knows what to do with this newfound understanding.

They get to Bucky’s apartment and Steve moves away from him. Bucky gets his keys out and opens the door. “You want coffee or a soda? I’ve got that cream soda you like.”

Steve is chewing on his lip, looking around Bucky’s apartment like he’s looking for escape routes or something. Something being the cage. As if it’ll be next to the fruit bowl or have pride of place on the mantel.

He’s tense as fuck. As soon as Bucky’s back is turned, Steve has his hand on his cock, adjusting himself. He can see it out of the corner of his eye. Poor bastard must be beside himself if he can’t even wait long enough to make sure he can’t be seen.

“Wanna sit on the couch?” he asks, going into the kitchen. He comes back and Steve is bright red. He’s got a pillow over his crotch and he’s angled so his leg is up, like his dick needs space.

Steve needs to go jerk off. And this might not be a problem they can solve in a day. Steve’s anxiety is through the roof and they aren’t going to get anywhere with Steve being as defensive as he is. Maybe if Bucky gives a little now, shows he’s gonna try to understand, make it not a big deal, Steve will open up.

He gets back up and goes to his room, gets the cage and the lock and the key and comes back out to the living room. “Here. I’m sorry I said I got rid of it. That wasn’t very nice.”

Steve is gripping the pillow hard with one hand as he stares at Bucky’s hand holding his cage. “Why don’t you go put it on and then we can talk. I’ll get us a snack, you go get comfortable and we’ll try again. I’m sorry.”

He sets it down on the couch next to Steve, hands him the lock and little key and goes back towards the kitchen. He knows the moment Steve moves, keeps his back to him as Steve slips out of the living room and into the bathroom. He hears the door close and lock.

How long will it take him to jerk off and cram himself into the thing? It’s small. Steve is large. Is it the right size? It’s also very industrial and heavy. There’s gotta be lighter, more comfortable versions. Did Steve choose this one or was it like the only one there and he’s too embarrassed to get something that fits better? He doesn’t know this side of Steve well enough to be certain of anything.

And that has Bucky on edge.

He should know _everything_ about Steve. When Steve was firmly in the non-sexual category of Bucky’s brain then there was nothing to know and he didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. Cause how the fuck was that going to help anything?

But now Steve is sexual. He has proclivities, Bucky turns him on and it’s like a door to the Secret Garden has opened up and Bucky is just standing there peering in.

He wants to go into that garden. He’ll find every weed and blade of grass, know how to water every plant and seed of Steve’s sexuality if this is now a thing Bucky can somehow have. He knows everything about Steve but this is unknown. Steve doesn’t get unknown with him. His sudden desperation to have and explore this, crack it open and make Steve’s his isn’t helpful. Or good. It definitely isn’t nice or romantic.

He doesn’t know if the old version of himself would react the same way. Steve’s already been in the bathroom for five minutes. Maybe Bucky should go jerk off in his bedroom and see if that helps settle anything. He’s got the serum. Disappearing for a quick wank is par for the course. Normal. Especially compared to the cage alternative. He settles for adjusting himself and makes popcorn and puts some veggies and drinks on the coffee table.

Steve comes out ten minutes later. Bucky has the tv on, feet are on the coffee table, shoes off, relaxed as possible. He’s radiating friendly hanging out vibes. “All these comedies have such weird laugh tracks. Makes them hard to watch,” he says, not even looking at Steve.

Steve sits down, easy as anything, seems more himself than he has since this all started. He reaches out for popcorn and Bucky moves the bowl between them. Steve drinks his soda, the show comes to an end, the popcorn bowl is empty and Bucky is relaxed, or at least giving off as good of a fucking impression of relaxed as he can. His head is on the couch and he rolls his head to look at Steve, small smile, friendly.

“I’m sorry I was such a dick about it. I think that you getting hurt, that moment of thinking you were gonna bleed out, and then having this discovery where it just looked like it had to be painful, it was like the two things got all messed up in my mind.”

“Uh huh.”

“And, I think if I hadn’t spent so long with masks and things forced onto me and into me, been kept in cages myself, I probably wouldn’t have reacted so strongly.” It’s a low fucking blow. Sure, it’s true. Bucky’s definitely got some of his own emotional baggage in there and mixed up with this, but he also knows Steve hears anything about what Bucky went through and everything changes. 

Bucky is suddenly the saint that Steve venerates. He can get away with a lot. Steve shakes his head, a hint of that small, fond smile on his lips. “There just isn’t anything to discuss. It’s my life and it’s not…interfering with anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s not like I’ve got someone who has a vested interest in my…arousal,” he says, like the guilty and repressed religious boy he’s always been.

“But, what if you wanted to start dating or get laid? Would you take it off?”

“Honestly, it isn’t something I think about.”

He wants to say bullshit but Steve sounds so fucking sincere. “Why not?” he asks, reminding himself this isn’t about judgement, he’s just gathering information.

_Then_ it’s about judgement.

And getting Steve to change. “There just… isn’t going to be someone. And I’m okay with it. Used to it. I can get dates. I get hit on all the time but that isn’t what I want.”

“But, do you know what you’re missing? _At all_?”

Steve goes red. It starts on his chest and goes up his neck and settles in his cheeks. It’s adorable. “Look pal, Peggy came out of nowhere. And if the war had ended and you’d gone on dates and you’d made out and gotten your hand up her skirt and between her legs, felt how wet and warm and soft she was, I don’t think we’d be having this conversation.”

“Don’t be crude,” Steve says, quietly.

“I’m not being crude, I’m serious. You’ve made this choice and you don’t have all the information. It’s like you’ve decided to only live in the dark but you’ve never been in the sun.”

Steve huffs. “That’s a bit much. It _might_ be like only eating french fries and never having a baked potato. It’s a potato, I’ve tried it. It’s an orgasm, I’ve done it. And rice is just as good.”

“Okay. No more food metaphors or god only knows where we’ll wind up. How often do you take it off?” Bucky asks. If he thinks sex is like a fucking potato then he clearly needs to experience it.

“Cleaning. Basically.”

“Okay.” He can’t look at Steve. He stares at the dark tv screen instead. This is so awful and weird. It’s oddly heartbreaking. Bucky can’t help but think of it as a sign of dysfunction.

“A lot of people practice chastity, Bucky.”

“This isn’t like waiting til marriage. You’re just…opting out. And doesn’t it hurt?”

“Buck. I get that you’re trying to help, but you’re only looking at it from the perspective of a guy who loves sex. You’d choose sex over food or booze or smoking or any other vice. That’s you. I just want to not think about it. This makes me calm and it just feels right. If I hadn’t gotten shot, you wouldn’t have known. It’s not like heroin or something bad. You could get STD’s, get a girl pregnant, why is what you’re doing better than me _not_ doing it?”

If one doesn’t look at it too deeply then Steve makes a decent case. Maybe it even makes sense in some strange way. “But, sex is intimacy. It’s closeness and connection and you’ve taken a key part of yourself that is necessary for that and literally made it inaccessible. Surrounded by metal. Locked away….You’re untouchable.”

“But, if I don’t want someone to touch me then what’s it matter?” he says, a hint of frustration creeping into his tone.

“Because you don’t _know_ that you don’t want someone to touch you because you’ve _never_ done it!” Bucky says, getting even more frustrated. Because this is a stupid argument to have and he can’t believe Steve has wound up in this situation.

“I’m fine,” Steve says.

“You’d like it if you tried it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s sex! _Everyone_ fucking likes it!”

“What about nuns? Or priests?”

“Fuck that. Come here,” he says. Steve doesn’t move. “I’m serious.” He sets his watch. Puts on a timer for two minutes but doesn’t start it. “Come over here and let me kiss you. That’s it. If you kiss me and you still don’t see the point of it all then I’ll let it go.”

“I’ve kissed before,” Steve says, sounding strangled.

“Who? Sharon? I _saw_ you kiss Sharon. You almost fell asleep.”

“Your ego is fucking unbelievable.”

“True. But, I’ve got good reason. Come here. Two minutes and if you don’t like it then you can lord it over me for the next however many years we have left that I can’t kiss for shit.”

Steve looks at him for a solid ten seconds and finally says, “I’m a man. You’ve never wanted me like that.”

“I noticed,” Bucky says, deadpan.

“You don’t like men…or me,” he says, slowly.

Bucky shrugs. “You don’t know that. It was just illegal. I guess I’m bi but I went out with a lovely trans girl for a bit so that might expand the label out, I don’t know. I’m too fucking old to deal with letters. If the connection is good and it’s there, I’m not gonna get hung up about gender. And you’re you. After everything we’ve done together….” he shrugs. Mainly because Bucky has no idea how he’d finish that sentence. He tries to chuckle. It sounds like a small, dying animal. “Been willing to get punched and hurt for you, do anything for and with you for a long fucking time. What’s sex when you’ve already died for someone?”

Steve is just staring at him. As if he’s said something deeply surprising. Maybe said many surprising somethings.

“And you… promise to _never_ bring this up again?”

“Yeah, I do.” It’s a total lie.

Steve shakes his head. “You’ve…you’ve been with men?” he asks, again.

“Are you asking me because it bothers you or because you don’t want to kiss me if I’m not into it?” Bucky asks, wanting clarification.

“I don’t… the second option? I guess?” he doesn’t sound sure.

“Yes, I’ve been with men—“

“How?” Steve interrupts.

“What do you mean?”

He’s turning as bright as a tomato. “I mean were you…in them?”

“You want references or a chart? Weirdly enough, if you can think about it, I’ve probably done it… although a cock cage is new,” he says, and can’t stop himself from looking at Steve’s crotch. Not that there’s anything to see. Alas. “If the idea of my being a virgin for something excites you, then congrats, you can pop that cherry.”

“Umm. What? No. Cherry?” Steve getting more and more flustered is actually a real turn on. “This is so stupid. Fine. What do you want me to do?” Steve says, suddenly conceding. Of course he is. Some horrible, fucked up part of him knows it’s because Steve wants this and has likely wanted it for awhile now. Steve has wanted him for a long time. Crazy.

“What sounds hotter, pushing someone against a wall and kissing them or getting pushed against a wall and someone kissing you?” Bucky asks. It seems important. Steve takes a moment to think about it. Doesn’t answer. “Okay, you want to be pushed against a wall. Great. Come sit on my lap.”

“I didn’t say that,” Steve splutters.

“You didn’t have to. The other position is a lot more dominant, masculine coded, so you’d feel like you could say that one out loud. Come on. Two minutes. If you keep arguing, I’m gonna make it three.”

Steve looks at his face, knows he’s serious. He isn’t moving. Bucky sighs. He licks his lips, lets the cocky confidence Steve both loves and hates, fill his voice. “Sweetheart, we both know you’re going to give in to me. You always do. You want me to be happy. You always have. I want to kiss you,” he says, and he moves closer, puts a hand behind Steve’s neck and slowly pulls him into a kiss.

Steve gasps against his lips. Bucky smiles, makes sure Steve can feel it. “Popcorn and cream soda. It’s like we’re sixteen, Stevie.” He keeps his lips soft, goes slow because he wants Steve to relax and lose himself in it. He didn’t start the timer. He had no intention of doing so.

He figures there’s a decent chance he can get that cage off if he’s patient enough and gets Steve hot enough. Steve’s lips are against his and Steve’s waiting, trying to figure out how to get more. So damned easy to read now that he’s got this information. “I want to kiss you deeper,” Bucky says, helping him out.

Steve sighs in relief and Bucky opens his mouth more, tongue sliding tentatively against Steve’s. Steve surges forward with a gratifying moan and Bucky lets his head go back, lets his mouth open so Steve can kiss him how he wants.

Steve is practically shaking with lust, and the urge to shove Steve down and do this faster and harder is like a song or a melody repeating over and over in Bucky’s mind.

Is this him? Would he have felt like this before the fall if they’d done this? Without the fall and everything after they never would have wound up doing this. It’s weird and insistent and he isn’t sure why he feels like _this_. It could be some strange hint of residual programming from when Steve was his mission. Is that why he wants to get him down and take him apart?

It’s not meanly. Not completely, anyway. He just wants to know everything, have everything. Every gasp and arch and give of Steve’s body. He wants to be rough with Steve and… have him. Completely. Hear him and have it feel so good that it hurts. Wanting to do that to Steve seems like it might be wrong.

Bucky pulls back, needing a moment to get himself together because he’s pretty sure he’s not in the right frame of mind for this after all. Listening, being understanding, being friends… that’s all so pale and ridiculous. So _good_.

Steve chases his mouth and some fucked up post-soldier part of Bucky thinks Steve is trying to keep that creeping darkness live between them. The darkness that wants to swallow Bucky whole and taint all of this, change it into something worthy of a cage. A cage isn’t sweet or nice and maybe they aren’t either, he thinks as Steve’s lips slide against his.

No, they aren’t very nice. Not to each other, because they know each other too well to be nice all the time. _Don’t be nice_, a part of him thinks. Bucky bites down on Steve’s lip, needing some interruption in whatever this is, and Steve goes soft and heavy into him, as if he wants more of _that_.

Doesn’t the cage hurt? That’s the real fucking question. Is that what Steve wants? Does he want to hurt? Fine. If Steve wants to be in the cage then Bucky will leave him there to moan and writhe and _want._ Steve can be beautifully miserable and Bucky will come on him and in him, hold him close, keep him worked up, crying with it. He will beg Bucky to come and Bucky will shove him back and take those tears into his mouth and he will know him that way if that’s what Steve likes. 

“Touch me,” Bucky orders, and he lets his hand roam to Steve’s chest, wanting to feel him up, because Steve’s chest is fucking incredible and he’s taking things from Steve.

Steve whimpers when he rubs over his nipple and Bucky moans against Steve’s mouth. He puts the metal arm away from Steve’s chest because the urge to squeeze him and hear Steve make a _pained_ sound is insistent. He can’t quite rely on his control overriding his synaptic connection to the arm. Usually he can, usually he knows every response of his body and the weapon he is. Bucky knows himself thoroughly and by rote, but this is Steve and different and trusting himself is a very bad idea. 

Steve touches Bucky’s hair, fingers gentle as he slides through the strands near his face. He’s almost petting him, gives Bucky this sense that he’s wanted to touch Bucky’s hair for a long time and never could. _Gentle._

How long has Steve wanted him?

“Should I be gentle?” Bucky asks. Steve huffs out a breath and that seems to take the question away. Dissipates the whole concept.

New question.

“Do you want to feel me getting hard for you?” he asks. Steve’s hand clumsily lands on Bucky’s thigh. Bucky spreads his legs, pulls Steve’s hand to his crotch where he’s getting hard.

Steve touches him with his fingers and his palm, working him up like he’s desperate to know how big Bucky can get. He’s tracing the shape with his fingers, would be jerking Bucky off if he could, he seems so into it. Bucky still has his hand on Steve’s chest, can’t bear to let go of him even for a minute. He fumbles with the button of his jeans, pops it and moans at just that hint of relief. “Want to take me out?” he asks.

“I’m not… do you want me to?” Steve asks, licking his lips.

Bucky nods against his mouth, kisses his jaw and then his neck. He wants to fuck Steve’s face and drench him in come. _Be gentle. Be sweet_, Bucky reminds himself. Those concepts are inaccessible. In their own cage, trapped in Bucky’s mind, slipping away.

He groans in frustration, nips Steve without really meaning to and Steve shoves a hand down to his own cock, pressing hard. “Exactly. That’s exactly right,” Bucky whispers.

Bucky wants more of that. He wants Steve beside himself and desperate, and it needs to happen now because Bucky’s becoming concerned that he’s about to be the one that loses his mind, and he knows better than that.

Bucky Barnes is good at sex. A gentleman. Hold the door open, let someone else go first. It’s good manners. “Let me make you feel good. Can I?” he asks, dragging this back on track. _Gentle?_ Bucky’s brain supplies the idea.

There’s a long pause. God only knows what Steve is thinking or hesitating over. Steve frowns, pets Bucky’s cock through his clothing. Bucky will come back to Steve.

“Then you make me come,” Bucky says, urgent, mouth and dick apparently going ahead and making decisions without any sensible input. This is bad, he thinks. Selfish.

“Yeah, yes, please,” Steve whispers, trying to touch Bucky everywhere. Finally, he feels like Steve’s desperation matches his own. He wants to come and show Steve what he’s missing. Which is a much better goal than having Steve and using Steve.

The goal. Bucky knows it: he wants to get him out of his cage and make him moan and squirm and call Bucky’s name. He wants to make him cry with how fucking good it feels.

“I want that,” Steve whispers, shy and eager against his mouth.

His hand clenches in Steve’s hair. “Good.” He can work with that. Steve will see how good it is for Bucky to be dick out and getting off and he’ll be using that key in no time.

Steve’s hands go to Bucky’s zipper, pulling it down and one hand feeling him up in his underwear. “That’s good, sweetheart,” he says, and then he reaches forward, to the basket on his table where there’s a travel lotion that got dumped in there at some point vaguely recently. He hands it to Steve.

“Um, with this?”

“Yeah. Don’t you like it wet and slick, Steve? You’re fucking gorgeous. Help me out here. You’re getting me all worked up. _Feel._ Do you want to feel how hard you’ve made me?” he asks, and he puts his hand over Steve’s, rubs up and down, lets his hips arch into it and is happy to note that Steve is beside himself. He’s pressing on his cock with the palm of his hand. He makes a noise. A whimper and throws his head back like he’s coming.

Steve breathes for a long moment while Bucky ruts gently against Steve’s loosened grip and studies him through lowered lashes. “Did you come?” he asks, hazy on the mechanics of it all.

“No,” Steve says. Breathing still ragged.

“Can you come in there?”

“No,” Steve picks up the lotion, opens it up like he has no idea how it works, squirts some out, gets way too much in his hands and then looks at Bucky’s pants in confusion, apparently unable to figure out what to do next. He’s cute and befuddled in his arousal.

Bucky lifts his hips, shoves his pants and underwear down, getting his cock out. He strokes his cock and balls while Steve watches, fascinated and lusting.

“Jesus,” Steve breathes, lotion covered hand trembling as he waits to touch Bucky.

“You’re not disgusted, are you?” Bucky asks, because he knows the answer. Steve is looking at him like he wants to suck him down, like he’s going to run off and elope with Bucky’s dick.

“No. You’re… Buck. _Bucky_.”He kisses Bucky frantically, grips Bucky’s cock too tight and then loosens his grip as he jerks him off in steady pumps, almost too slippery and artless. Steve’s just going for the finish line, not bothering with foreplay or anything.

“Slow down or I’ll come. Fuck, Steve.”

“Want you to. Want to see it.”

“Yeah?”

“You have no idea. I do. Please, let me see it.”

_Perfect_. He’ll see it, he’ll want it, and then it’s goodbye cage. Problem resolved in a few hours, after all. “You’re making it happen, baby. Fuck. Can I touch your chest some more?”

Steve nods and jerks faster. Bucky gets hands on Steve’s chest, plays with Steve’s nipples and Steve shakes with it.

“Want you on my lap when I come. Can I come on your stomach?”

“Whatever. Anything,” Steve breathes, and Bucky pulls him over. He’s careful to take Steve’s weight, on account of his leg. Steve moans at the stretch of his inner thigh. It must be painful as hell, actually, but Steve makes it sound like it feels good.

“Sorry. Wasn’t thinking aboutyour injury. We can do something different.”

“No, I’m good. I’m here,” Steve says. Steve adjusts his grip, staring adoringly at Bucky’s hard cock and he’s going to have this image in mind when he’s getting off for a good long time.

Bucky lifts Steve’s shirt up, exposing his skin and all those muscles, grabbing at his chest with his flesh hand. He gets a hand under Steve’s, gripping himself at the base, tilting his own cock and then he’s coming, heavy spurts all over Steve’s stomach and a few high up his chest. Steve pants, desperately shoving one hand on the cage. He even thrusts into it, then swears.

“Where’s the key?” Bucky asks.

Steve shakes his head.

“Want to make you feel good, too,” Bucky murmurs, and gets rougher with Steve’s chest, squeezes his nipples harder, curious to see how he responds.

Steve presses into the hard touches, his hand goes lower, under the cage, digging into his balls most likely. Good luck coming that way, Bucky thinks.

“Let me, sweetheart,” he says, gentle. Kissing him softly on the mouth, wanting to reassure him.

“Don’t like to be out of it,” he whispers. “Don’t ask me.” He’s blinking like he might cry.

Well, fuck. Bucky kisses his neck, sucking marks into his skin and letting the moment pass. Steve finally relaxes, he can feel Steve’s hand moving against himself through his clothing, the flex of his arm muscle the only visible sign that he’s doing _something_ down there.

“Show me then. At least let me see it. See how pretty it looks on you,” he says, putting his fingers on Steve’s hand, wanting him to move and let Bucky take over. He doesn’t stop touching himself and Bucky slides his fingers to the side, petting what he can .

All he feels is metal.

And the damned lock. Steve starts to come back to himself, out of the haze, a bit of distrust and Bucky grabs him and kisses him senseless, until he’s making needy little sounds and clinging onto Bucky, needier and more sincere than anyone he’s ever been with.

Steve is almost naive in his willingness to be vulnerable and desperate. There’s no artifice or pretense. His adoration and love are just there. He’s so beautiful and willing to please that Bucky wants to keep going. Take everything from him and see how much Steve will keep on giving.

How did he not know that Steve was like this? How did Bucky go all these years fucking around with random people and yet he never knew Steve could be this way with _him_? Could he have had this all along?

What if Steve had actually wanted him before this? If Steve is open to this then Bucky wants more. He’ll be the thief invited into Steve’s home who robs him blind. Maybe it’s a good thing Steve was locked away like some princess in a tower because now he’ll be Bucky’s. _You’re mine, I’m getting you out of the cage and you’re going to thank me_, he vows.

“Stevie, it’s going to be so good. I swear. Just let me.”

Steve kisses him, moans into his mouth and touches him like this is all he’s ever wanted and… and Steve is his in every other way that matters. His in life and death.

The need to do everything with him, to suck the very heart of him out through his cock, if that’s what it takes, makes him giddy. Frantic. He can have Steve’s touch, see Steve come. He grabs Steve’s hand, pulls it out from between his legs, wanting to do it himself. Steve moans in frustration but twines their fingers together. His kiss gets deeper, like he’s more on edge than before.

“Come on, baby. Just let me see. Can’t I look? Can’t I pet you a little? I’ll make you feel so good,” he says. Swear to fucking god every word that comes out of his mouth makes him harder, more desperate for Steve. He wants to get into his pants more than he’s ever wanted anything in his damned life. And it isn’t even to get his dick wet, it’s just to get a _look_ at Steve.

“You’re still so hard,” Steve says, slick fingers slipping away from Bucky’s grip and going back to Bucky’s cock. His touch is electric and distracting. He loses all sense of what he’s supposed to be doing with Steve touching him. “Bucky. Could you come again?” he begs. Like it will be a personal compliment if Bucky can come twice in ten minutes.

“It’s the serum, we both could.”Can he really not come in his cage? The desire to make him, to have it happen overwhelms him. Steve’s grip and rocking little movements on his lap have Bucky’s hips moving, fucking up into Steve’s fist, sidetracked by his own lust. He puts a hand on Steve to pull him away, just needing a second, a damned moment, but Steve breathes his name like a shocked virgin, shifts his grip again, derailing his plan.

Everything else slides away, the need to come coiling deep inside him. “Shit, Steve. I’ve got to. God, I want to touch you. Think I’d come just getting a hand on you. You must be so pretty in there,” he says, petting the metal gently through his pants as best he can. It’s crowded between them and he can’t be doing all that great of a job but the words seem to work. 

They get Steve hot. Gets him a nod and Bucky moans, thrusts into Steve’s grip like a man dying, while he undoes Steve’s pants and tries to get the zipper down with one hand. He tries to lift his other hand away from Steve’s nipple, but Steve whimpers and so he stays, shushing him like he’s promising not to die on him.

Bucky’s angle sucks. It’s all skin warmed metal and the barest hint of skin though the bars at the top near where he’s less sensitive. What’s Bucky supposed to do with a fucking cage? He shouldn’t pull obviously, and there’s nothing to touch.

Steve is going faster, pumping Bucky relentlessly, seemingly desperate to hurry Bucky along and Bucky jerks his hand away from Steve’s chest and lifts Steve’s cock, gets a hand on Steve’s hot and heavy balls and Steve cries out in pleasure or agony, Bucky doesn’t know which. He can’t even guess. 

But, it’s fucking fantastic to have this much reaction from him and Bucky doesn’t really mean to come but he does. “Shit,” he says, pulsing all down Steve’s hand.

Steve take the opportunity to pull Bucky’s hand out of his pants. Bucky looks at him, totally blissed out and Steve is clearly all worked up, hasn’t come, his cheeks are flushed and he’s almost too quick in his movements and his breaths. On edge. 

“Let me grab a tissue,” Steve says, and somehow he’s up and off while Bucky’s head is back on the couch and he’s basically comatose. Bucky forces his eyes open, sees Steve holding his pants up with his non-come covered hand as he disappears into the bathroom. He comes back with washed hands and gives Bucky tissues, a strained smile on his lips. Bucky takes them and cleans up, catches Steve looking even as he’s backing up and away.

Bucky puts his head down into his hands. That didn’t go like it was supposed to. And the more he thinks about it the more annoyed he gets. Steve didn’t come. He got all turned on, led Bucky down the garden path, made him come twice and is now put to rights and ready to leave.

Steve’s got his fucking phone in hand and he’s ordering an Uber and Bucky is still sitting on the couch because Steve kind of blew his mind with a couple of virginal hand jobs that didn’t seem to mean too much to him.

He knows it’s not a game. Or even like some kind of revenge thing like they did when they were kids. It isn’t. But there’s definitely something aloof or weird or—

“So, that’s it then? You won’t bring it up again?” Steve says, springing the fucking trap while he’s hovering near Bucky’s door.

What the _fuck_? Does Steve actually think it’s that easy? Bucky gets to his feet, leaves his jeans unbuttoned and stalks closer to Steve. Steve who is looking at Bucky’s crotch and licking his lips like he’s fucking starving for it. Steve who’s shifting from foot to foot like he’s got ants in his pants.

“Are you saying you didn’t like it?” Bucky asks. He doesn’t mean to sound cold but there it is.

“What? _No_. But, I kissed you, and whatever, and for the allotted amount of time. So, this is now finished.”

“That wasn’t three minutes,” he says, although being a stickler for the rules isn’t typically how he plays things. And Steve certainly doesn’t give a fuck for the rules. Give Steve a stupid rule and all he wants to do is break it. “Three minutes was for you to like it. I think it went on for long enough that we can both agree you were at least somewhat into it.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “I’ve called a car. I guess I can slide down on my ass,” he jokes, but it’s not really a joke. Bucky buttons his pants. He puts an arm around Steve to help haul him down the stairs. He needs something to say that doesn’t sound whiny.

“See you later, Buck,” Steve says, when he’s out the door and Bucky grabs his arm, tries to read him. What is _that_ tone? Is he laughing at Bucky? Does he think he’s won? Does he think this is _over_?

Steve blinks. “You said,” he whispers, helplessly, arm flexing in a desire to be released.

“_What_ did I say?” he hisses. He’s on the verge of being incandescent with rage. Steve glances around, hoping for the car, obviously. “I won’t let you go that easily and if you pull away from me—”

“_What_? What are you gonna do?” Steve demands, finally giving some hint of a genuine emotion as he steps in closer.

Steve uses his height like he can intimidate Bucky. He can’t imagine why but it reminds him of glass and sky and blankness. Steve falling, dripping with blood and everything burning around them. He flinches and blinks. Steve yanks his arm away. He’s glad Steve hasn’t noticed.

“You said three minutes. I gave you that. I gave you—” He exhales, swallows, his voice is rough. “You wanted to prove whatever it was you wanted to prove. Now I want to go home. I’m sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for.”

Steve has no scars on his face. No physical reminder of what happened. It’s almost like it was erased. Wiped away. Another thing Bucky has done that there’s no trace of. Steve’s turning his back. He walks away from Bucky and gets into a car. Bucky’s fine. Steve is fine.

He trudges back up the stairs. Neither of them are fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hurley? Destiel? Anyone?


	4. Chapter 4

Steve thinks he’s doing a pretty good job getting on with his life considering he hasn’t talked to Bucky in three days. 

Considering what happened between them.

He’s not jumping off a cliff or crashing a plane in grief. He’s not begging Bucky and making things even worse.He even went to the gym yesterday and this morning he’s going on his run with Sam. Steve can say, with reasonable certainty, that he is passing the test of being a functioning member of society.

People believe he’s fine. Because he _is_ fine. Sam asks him if things are okay with Bucky. He’d done it with a little side-eyed glance that had him wondering what Bucky had told him.

“Did you talk to him?” Steve asked.

“Briefly.” Is Sam going to make him ask what was said? Bucky would. Sam is kinder than that, though. “Think he’s worried about you. Said he hadn’t been able to get a hold of you.”

“Well, that’s not true. I texted him yesterday.”

“You mean to cancel your boxing date?”

“It wasn’t a _date_,” Steve says, quickly.

Sam grunts and then says, “Did you two ever?”

“Ever what?”

“Date,” Sam says, annoyed Steve is pretending to not know what he means.

“Nope. We’re friends. Back then no one looked at me that way and after the serum… I guess we weren’t quite as close as we had been.”

“Huh,” he says, surprised.

Steve feels compelled to clarify. And maybe he wants to talk about it a little. A _very_ little. And only certain parts. “You gotta remember that when we were growing up eugenics was a thing. I was weak and ill and very likely I was going to die. And for some damn reason Bucky wanted to be my friend anyway. My mom was poor, kids made fun of me and Bucky was there to defend me as much as he could. He always…saw more to me,” he says, slowly.

“When my ma died, Bucky was all I had. I was trying to work but I couldn’t do anything physical. Bucky paid for me to take classes and we lived together for years. If I was going to die in the night Bucky was going to be the one holding me when it happened and putting the….” He stops running and bends down to tie his shoe. It doesn’t need to be tied, but things with Bucky are fucked up and he actually might not be able to bear it if they can’t get it fixed. He straightens, smiles, starts running again. Sam groans so Steve slows down.

“When I died he’d be the one putting the dirt on my coffin. Hell, he’d have paid for it.” And that’s it. He can’t do this anymore. He can’t run and keep wandering along like everything is fine when he hasn’t talked to Bucky in three days and he has no idea how to make things better. How does he go around and exist and not have Bucky with him? _Oh, that’s right, I don’t_.

Without Bucky he makes choices like going down in a plane. He sits down on the grass, buries his head in his arms and Sam is suddenly there, trying to tell him it’s going to be okay and patting him on the back. It’s not Bucky.

He wants his best friend to hold him and make him feel better. He wants Bucky to wrap him in a blanket, even though he’s rarely ever cold, and to turn on some stupid sitcom he’s trying to watch so he can be ‘pop culture relevant’ and just keep him together.

He squeezes his thighs and the cage cuts in deep on his balls. The breath oozes out of him and he feels a bit better. It’s a hard and steady pain he lets build and build and then he realizes Sam is talking to him so he stops and lets himself fall back to the grass, staring up at the cloudy sky.

“You guys will work it out.”

Why do people always say that? What a bullshit platitude. “Yeah, I know.” He looks at his watch, says he has to go. In fact, he’s late, he says, with a shrug. Sam knows he’s lying but is kind enough not to call him out on it.

Bucky would’ve.

Bucky doesn’t let Steve get away with anything. Bucky knows him. It kills him that Bucky doesn’t know this part of him. And it’s even worse that he doesn’t understand, at all. And Bucky can’t forget about something like this. He won’t let it go.

The lengths he was willing to go to just to try and get Steve out of the cage, make Steve burn with humiliation. How could he have been so weak? Bucky had offered himself to Steve and Steve was so desperate for Bucky, had been for so fucking long he’d said yes. He’d seen an opportunity to have some of what he’d always wanted and he’d taken it. And at every point there’d been Bucky’s insistence that Steve take off the cage.

Cause it wasn’t about him, it was about his problem.

Who knows what Steve would have done if he’d let Bucky take it off. He’d been tempted. Just to make Bucky happy. The shameless begging he’d have done when his cock got hard and basically ruled and ruined his life.

One fucking bullet and now Steve has nothing. He’d only been out of the cage for a few hours and he’d given away how much he wanted Bucky. It had compromised his decisions, made him a traitor to himself.

The only thing that mattered to Steve in the entire fucking world was keeping Bucky by his side. And all it took was a few hours out of it and look where they were.

What had happened. Bucky had been… beautiful. Steve had felt obsessed and desperate while Bucky had been calm and confident. Man of the world, ladies man (and apparently men sometimes, although he wondered if Bucky was just saying that to make Steve do what he wanted). He’d been so fucking desperate for him he couldn’t tell if Bucky was lying or not. And, yes, Bucky was ruthless enough that he’d totally fool around with Steve if he thought it was necessary to ‘help’ him.

Bucky made sex look easy and casual. Uncomplicated.Coming all over Steve’s stomach like it was nothing. Down his hand. Not once but _twice_, which was somehow worse. It had felt impersonal.

And, one could say that maybe it was flattering that Bucky had come twice, but Steve had the serum, he knew damned well how often one could come and how easy it was and two times was nothing. He couldn’t let himself read too much into that. That was just Steve desperate to believe things might have been… real.

It hadn’t been. Not for Bucky anyway. Bucky’d had an agenda: get Steve out of the cage.

‘Fix’ him. Everything they’d done had been about making Steve take it off. Coaxing Steve into doing what he wanted for Steve’s own good. If he hadn’t been so turned on and desperate for Bucky in the hospital and the stairwell (of all fucking places) then Bucky wouldn’t have tried to manipulate him that way.

Who was he kidding? Bucky _had_ manipulated him. He always knew where Steve’s weaknesses were and he exploited them. Thank god he hadn’t taken off the fucking cage. Thank god he’d had some scrap of sense left to protect himself.

And that was all he knew.

How to fix things, how to behave when he saw him again, how to make Bucky stop acting like he wanted Steve.… He didn’t know how to handle any of that.

The text came at 3am, no doubt to bolster it’s authenticity and send Steve into a panic. The message said: _I’m really worried you’re avoiding me now. I can’t do this without you. Please tell me how to make things right._

He knows Sam was probably on the phone with Bucky not five minutes after he left. And this was Bucky’s ploy. The best strategy to get Steve to do what he wanted.

The message ticks every box. Bucky says he’s worried (and Steve can’t have that) he says that Steve is likely mad (which means Steve needs to tell him he isn’t or forgive him), Bucky is taking the blame (Steve can’t let him be a martyr, the guilt would be crushing) and just in case _that_ wasn’t enough, there’s that little line that could imply some sort of suicidal contemplation if their friendship is ruined.

He’s 80% sure it’s bullshit and that Bucky is fine. That he isn’t worried about them at all. It’s that 20% that’s a killer. Bucky’s probably relieved to have had the break from Steve and his newest problem.

He’s not sick anymore. He’s supposed to be able to take care of himself and not rely on Bucky. Something he’d had to start doing during the war. Something he’s still struggling with. Is Bucky resentful that he’s still got to try and fix Steve’s problems?

If he doesn’t respond to the text Bucky will show up. Steve’s grace period is over. He’s got to see Bucky. How can he see Bucky? God, the way he’d looked when he came. The way he kissed. _Everything_. Every single moment of that encounter was seared into Steve’s brain and driving him crazy. His cock cage was a prison of torment. A self-imposed miniature torture chamber. He’d basically limped out of Bucky’s apartment, his dick and balls so painful his healing bullet wound and the blood loss were nothing.

He’d come home, literally sat with a bag of frozen peas on his balls for an hour, gone to sleep, had a few unbelievable dreams where Bucky did things to him, with him, or _inside_ him that made him weep with pleasure _and_ pain, and woke up with his sheets soaked in come from having two nocturnal emissions. Things hadn’t gotten better. It was like Bucky had flipped a switch inside of Steve and now he didn’t know himself at all.

And now there was the text. The fucking text that was definitely a manipulation and yet, it was Bucky. He agonized over his response. _Everything is fine. Just wanted a bit of time to get myself together._ No, he couldn’t say that.

_We’re fine. I promise._ He sent it before he could overthink it.

_I keep dreaming about Siberia._ Bucky wrote back almost instantly.

_You’re a fucking asshole who’s manipulating me. _He didn’t send it. He was tempted. _Anything I can do to help? _He sent instead.

_Pizza and a movie tonight? My place? Please?_

_Of course. _He agrees, internally sighing.

He can just imagine Bucky, so pleased with himself that it’s worked. The only man Steve has ever loved was an asshole. He ground his hand hard into his cock until he couldn’t take it anymore.

***

He got to Bucky’s at seven and brought a six pack and two pints of Ben and Jerry’s. Bucky liked Cherry Garcia, which Steve thought was disgusting and Steve picked up Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough for himself.

A classic.

Steve wore jeans and an emerald green henley he’d bought right after he’d taken Bucky to Wakanda.

Wanda had helped him pick it out. Nat had raised a brow in approval. He knows it’s vain and ridiculous but he can’t help it. He hesitates in the hallway, presses hard on the cage so it digs into the base of his shaft. It’s not his favorite way to take the edge off, but he’s been so sore and aching since Bucky, his cock perpetually trying to get hard, that he’s forced to change things up a bit.

Pain is a distraction. Pain is something that keeps everything in its proper place.

The two of them had been through so much and surely they can find a way to get through this, too. Bucky hadn’t been trying to hurt him. It’d been more about proving a point. Look at how good Steve could feel if he took the cage off. He could feel as good as Bucky (queue image of Bucky copiously coming all over Steve). What an asshole.

The _proper _conclusion was actually, look how far Bucky would go because he cares about Steve. Bucky was with him now in the future and he was fine. He wasn’t frozen or choosing to be frozen. Not that he’d done it because he didn’t care about Steve. Bucky’s reasons for leaving Steve and going back into an icy sleep weren’t personal. It was for Steve’s protection. Everyone’s protection. He reminds himself of that all the fucking time and part of him believes it.

Bucky would do _anything_ to protect Steve. Apparently, he might even let Steve give him a hand job if he thought that was helpful.

That doesn’t mean Bucky wants to fuck him.

It doesn’t mean Bucky wants to mouth him through his cage and demand it be off of him because he actually wants Steve’s cock like Steve wants Bucky’s. It doesn’t mean Bucky wants to get Steve hard and twisted around with lust, clingy and begging and then get him all locked up again.

Steve _likes_ denying himself, he _likes_ proving he can do it and nothing makes that more difficult than Bucky. Bucky is the lightbulb and he’s the moth. It’s not a good idea. He’ll always go, anyway. He’s pacing. He’s gotta knock on the door or Bucky is going to come and see him moping about his hallway, too terrified to knock.

He’s got to keep it together. It’s just Bucky. Bucky who constantly arouses him and makes him ache. Bucky who makes him come in the night. Despite himself. Without his permission. He shivers at that idea and shoves it away. Is so annoyed he lets the cage dig into his balls and then needs a minute to get his breath.

He knocks on the door.

Bucky smiles at him when he lets him in. It’s still so weird that they don’t live together. Bucky is back and yet Steve is still alone a lot of the time. He makes himself smile back at him. He’s so fucking gorgeous. His hair is all shiny and he got it cut, not short, but he looks like some kind of male model or something. It falls into his eyes and Bucky’s constantly having to push it back. It’s maddening how much it distracts Steve.

He’s got jeans and a gray t-shirt on. It’s thin and comfy looking. Bucky doesn’t seem to mind the arm being exposed and Steve likes to look at it. He has a weird fascination with it, which makes him feel kind of sick if he doesn’t rein it in. Inevitably, his mind will take a filthy turn if he looks at it for too long or doesn’t stay vigilant in guarding his thoughts. He keeps expecting Bucky to say something like, ‘my eyes are up here.’

Steve’s pretty sure he knows at least part of the appeal. It’s…metal. Warm, alive metal that’s part of Bucky. He could be in the palm of Bucky’s hand and the grip and squeeze, the mercilessness of it would be terrifyingly mind blowing.

Bucky’s very hand itself could be a cage for his cock. The fantasy of struggling to get hard against his perfectly balanced grip actually haunts him in his dreams. Bucky watching him get more and more desperate, shifting against him as he tries to get his cock more room while being held so tight. Bucky wouldn’t give him space, would be relentless and demanding. It would hurt in the best possible way.

Very not helpful. He holds the bag containing the ice cream out and Bucky takes it and then frowns. “Can I hug you? Is this you shoving me away?”

“What? No! Of course you can hug me,” Steve says, and Bucky closes the door, leans in, hugging him briefly then letting him go. There’s nothing beyond friendliness in it. Thankfully.

Yeah, thankfully, he thinks, grimly.

Bucky instantly starts talking movie options and Steve can smell chocolate chip cookies and potato skins in the oven. He’s got sour cream with sriacha sitting on the counter and everything about it screams ‘just friends!’

It’s disconcerting. He’d expected _something_. But, as they chat and eat and sit down to watch a movie and Bucky tells him some complicated story about trying to get Wanda’s powers to do something that incorporates Sam’s falcon unit he’s losing his mind. The story probably isn’t that complicated, he just can’t focus on it.

He’d made Bucky come (twice!) on this very couch. Bucky’d gotten Steve’s pants open and _begged_ to touch Steve. And that had been… his cock is so fucking obnoxiously painful sitting here next to Bucky and unable to get hard that he doesn’t even want to think about it. 

By the time the movie is over, Steve is lightly sweating at the constant simmer of agony. Fuck, it’s good and it’s horrible and he feels a little drugged with it. The small container of lotion is probably in the same place. He wishes Bucky would pick it up, hand it to Steve and tell him to get him off. Maybe in a very commanding way or in his smug ‘you know you love it’ voice.

He wants Bucky to taunt him, show him how good it would be and give Steve _nothing_. He wants Bucky to kiss him through the devastation of his frustrated arousal, help Steve with all this pain like he used to. Illnesses that lasted through the night and into weeks. Huddled up on the couch together while Steve’s lungs filled with fluid and tried to drowned him and Bucky was there.

Steve knows it’s obviously not a _good_ memory, not in the traditional sense of the word, but Bucky is and always has been a solace for Steve’s pain. Not anymore. Now Steve is in pain and he’s alone.

Steve has no more pain but what he creates for himself. He’s isolated and misunderstood with it. For all the time he’s been with Bucky since he got him back, in situations similar to this, near him and bursting with denied arousal, this is different.

Because of what they did or because Bucky knows and seems to not care, whatever the reason, tonight it’s worse. He keeps going back and forth to how fucking hot it is to be denied and ignored, but he also wants to have his denial recognized, maybe even complimented. And he’s _never_ going to get that. He might get Bucky wanting him to take the cage off and be ‘normal.’

That’s… that’s the last thing he wants. That makes him hate himself.

How is everything so easy for Bucky? How could he do that to them a few days ago and now go back to the way things were like that wasn’t a big deal? He wonders if Bucky’s already fucked some girl since then. He looks around the living room like he might see a pair of panties hanging off a lamp.

“Don’t laugh, but I had the most ridiculous memory come back to me last night.” Bucky says, and Steve isn’t sure how long he’s zoned out for.

“What?” Steve asked, voice a little bleak.

“Remember we used to play that game where I was a mad scientist and I’d kidnap you to make you into my Frankenstein type monster?”

“Right,” he says, uncomfortable for a lot of different reasons.

“We did that more than once, right?”

_It’s a trap!_ Steve’s brain helpfully supplies. “Uh, yeah. For a while there, we played it a lot.” They’d been like nine or something. And they’d played it way longer than they should have.

Bucky laughs. It sounds fake. Steve is staring at the screen and he unconsciously twists his wrist like he’s just gotten rope taken off of him.

“And then there was that radio program we’d listen to, the one you said you hated but I loved. So, one time I tied you up and made you listen to it.” Bucky is waiting. He’s looking at Steve. “Isn’t that right, Steve?”

“Bucky,” he says, because he knew it was a fucking set up, that he was going to be manipulated and it’s like Bucky is dragging him towards a cliff and about to shove him off.

“God, and then I’d tie you up all the time. Remember? I had that summer at the docks where I had to learn a few knots and I learned them on you?” He can almost feel Bucky looking at his hands and his arms. His ankles and thighs. The knots Bucky made, the way Bucky would…um, tie Steve up, which (it suddenly occurs to him) is kind of like being caged, now isn’t it?

Steve knows Bucky figured this all out sometime over the last few days. Came up with some theory and is now laying it out there and watching Steve squirm while he gets confirmation.

It’s probably why Steve is getting the nice set up of cookies and a movie. Best to get him relaxed and then spring it on him. Bucky shakes his head, smiling. He reaches out, runs his index finger down Steve’s jaw. “And then we lived together… If I remember correctly, you were tied up next to me almost every night there for awhile.”

“Not that often,” Steve says, weakly.

“Christ. You could be so fucking obnoxious, but once I got you tied up you were so sweet. I’d tie you up so you didn’t get in fights. You didn’t go out looking for excitement if I could keep you in line at home. Isn’t that how it was?”

Fuck him and his pretending he doesn’t remember. He can tell when Bucky actually doesn’t remember because he looks like a kicked puppy. Bucky does remember, he’s just enjoying tormenting Steve. Steve is breathing in and out. He is giving nothing away. Bucky is staring at him so hard, noting everything, absolutely every detail as Steve sits there like an insect in a spider web.

He can practically feel Bucky becoming stronger and himself becoming weaker as they sit there. It’s like some kind of power transfer. Like all of his abilities to control himself and fight and be _strict_ are just bleeding out of him while Bucky waits.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Steve says, voice almost non-existent, like most of his body has already decided not to fight and some bit of his rational brain is the last holdout.

Bucky’s hand lands on Steve’s thigh, making him look down and then back up to Bucky. His eyes are so damn blue. “Stevie, it was _never_ a good idea. Now, give me your wrist,” he says, palm open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it stopped here! I have another section that's almost done but there's something not right about it and I just can't look at it anymore tonight. there should defo be more tomorrow. Please comment! I swear it's the only reason I spent 8 hours on this honey today.


	5. Chapter 5

Fuck. _Fuck._ “No. Buck. This is just some bullshit to take the cage off of me. To try and fix me and boss me around and you can’t fucking do that to me. I know you don’t like what I’m doing, but I _do_.”

“What if I promise not to take it off? Not even if you beg me,” he says. It sounds like a threat. And there’s the challenge, now isn’t it? How long is it going to take for him to beg, he wonders, miserably. Bucky seems so confident, like he knows how it’s all going to go and he’ll just wait Steve out.

Is that part of his smug routine and he’s bluffing? Is it a conclusion he’s reached because of how well he knows Steve? Or maybe just the fact that he has a lot of experience with sex and has some knowledge Steve doesn’t?

“How long?” he asks, wondering if he can guess the answer or work it out by Bucky’s response.

“I don’t know. Until I’m done with you, I guess,” Bucky says, and Steve thinks maybe Bucky doesn’t even know. 

Steve closes his eyes and tries very hard to think. Bucky’s words are more effective than he knows. They have to be. Bucky can’t possibly know that that little statement is causing him to fall apart inside. He’s actually hot, like there’s something inside of him that’s aching and throbbing, untouched and needs to be stroked or pressed.

He’s read that a lot of denial can make one’s prostate ache. Is that what’s happening? It’s weird and horrible and the idea of coming, just getting to have some of the pressure out of him is enough to make him want to cry.Bucky is going to keep him locked up until he’s done with him. Casual. Proprietary.

He flexes his wrists. They’re only talking about his wrists. He’s so beside himself he keeps thinking they’re talking about the cage. Is that the point? Is that why Bucky has done this? More manipulation?

“What will you do with me?” he asks, voice gruff, sounding like he’s vaguely in control of himself.

“If I don’t take off the cage, does it matter what I do to you? Don’t you want to be surprised?”

Steve laughs, the sound strained. “Did you mean it when you said you’d been with guys?”

“Yeah.”

Stupid to have asked. What’s it matter? “Look, you’ve never wanted to be with me. It’s only because of this cage. I’m not your experiment or charity case. I can’t… I can’t bear that.”

“You need to look at me now.” Bucky waits. Steve looks. “I didn’t know you wanted me. I _never _thought having you was an option.”

“It isn’t an _option_! I am not an option!” Steve says, almost yelling. Good. He’s made himself clear. This is good, he thinks, as his heart fucking breaks into a million pieces. He should go now. “This is just to take off the cage and I mean it when I tell you that you are going to break us apart because I _don’t_ want that.”

“I don’t care about the cage.”

Steve looks at Bucky incredulously.

Bucky winces. “Well, yeah, I care about the cage. I do want it off. Eventually. But, I’ve had three days to think about it, jerk off over it and do some research and I’m pretty sure the cage only hinders you. I can still get what I want. Can’t I?” the look he gives Steve should be illegal. It’s downright Machiavellian. 

Bucky sighs. “I don’t have rope, Steve. But, I do have a pair of vibranium handcuffs.”

_No_. That hot ache is spreading out in waves, his balls are so full and a shudder goes through him, a whole body spasm as his cock leaks heavily at the very idea.

Does he have any idea what this does to Steve? This isn’t a prank or a game like it was when they were kids. He turns a pleading gaze to Bucky. He shakes his head. _Please don’t do this_. His mouth won’t say the words.

Bucky brings the handcuffs out of his back pocket, clicks one open, strokes along the cool metal of it with the tip of his index finger. He holds them in his hand like bracelets and presses the open metal to Steve’s lower lip. “I want to put these on you. Lock you up in metal just as you like. Are you gonna say no to me?”

He can’t beg him aloud not to do this. The reality is he wants it too badly, but Steve can already tell he’ll be a mess with the cuffs on and Bucky can’t understand that. What the years and the trauma and the loneliness have done to him. He didn’t acquire this need overnight. And it is a need. All of his desires are twisted up into this.

Whatever Bucky thinks is going to happen when he gets Steve how he wants him, is undoubtedly wrong. Steve doesn’t know how to say that. “Bucky, I’m begging you,” he says.

“You’re actually not. That might change. Wrist, Stevie.”

Steve holds out his hand, wrist up because Bucky is waiting. Bucky bends down, kisses the pulse of Steve’s wrist, slides fingers down his forearm and puts the cuff on him. It clicks shut.

“Bucky,” he breathes, some last desperate gasp to rein this all in. It’s like sanity has suddenly returned, a last flash of light before he goes dark and helpless. “It won’t be like before. I’m not a teenager or like that now. You don’t know me. It’s going to be weird and I’ll be a mess. You won’t like how I’ll be. There’s no cuddly Steve who just wants to sit next to you on the couch and listen to a fucking radio program. I promise you _we _don’t want this.”

“When have I _ever_ not liked anything about you?” Bucky asks, giving Steve his full attention.

“This is different.”

“How do you know? You let someone else put you in handcuffs?”

“No. But I… I have fantasies and I know how I react to other stuff and I’m just not wired right. You won’t like it.”

“What I didn’t _like_ was you getting up and walking out on me last time. You get me all hot and bothered, make me come and then bolt when I was too fucked out to stop you.”

“That’s even more reason to not do this. I don’t come in the cage. I can’t get hard. That’s the _point_. You want to return the favor or whatever and there’s nothing to return.”

“Was it good for you?” Bucky asks, blunt and earnest.

Steve shakes his head. That isn’t even the right question. A corner of Bucky’s mouth quirks up. “Was it _awful_ and _painful_ for you, Stevie? So damned awful you want it again? Was it good because it was bad?”

Well, shit. “I’m not normal. I can’t tell the difference sometimes. The pain of it will….”

“What, sweetheart?” Bucky asks, kissing the corner of his mouth and his cheek, his forehead, being solid and steady while he waits for Steve to get it out.

“It’s like… it breaks me down,” he confesses, not having any other way to describe it.

“Do you like being broken down?” Steve doesn’t answer. “If I break you down, I’ll put you back together again. Didn’t I always? How many times did you cry in my arms before, baby?”

“Bucky, I—” he whispers.

“When you were sick or scared. After getting hurt when you were _out_,” Steve notes the phrasing. Bucky never did like to say people beat the shit out of him. Or that Steve wandered into a lot of those fights willingly. “When we lost your mom and when I got drafted. And you’d cry in the ropes too, some nights. You were mine.” And the way he says it makes it clear that Steve isn’t his anymore. Hasn’t been since Bucky got shipped out and left him behind. Since the serum and Zola and Peggy and Hydra and Wakanda. So many things that have happened and taken them farther away from each other.

“I want you. I want _every_ fucking piece of you, including the cursed cage if that’s how I have to take you. You say you’re not normal. I guess it was about time for a reminder that we never really did normal. I’m pretty sure there aren’t a lot of fourteen year old boys who play mad scientist and take breaks to jerk off.”

Steve swallows. Well, that’s true. “We do normal now. Before yesterday. We should go back to that. At least try.”

“Why the fuck should we do that? What bullshit cowardly nonsense is that? We don’t get to go back, Steve. You’ve changed on me and if this is what you like now then I’ll like it too.”

“Bullshit. How would _you_ change? Where would you start? Even if it was that easy, and you’d suddenly decide what I like is what you want to do to me, that isn’t what you really want. You want _me_ to change. I’m the one that’s going to get hurt and be left with _nothing_.”

He can’t tell if Bucky is about to ravish him or run away screaming. He pulls on Steve’s bound wrist, speaks very quietly. “I think we’re done talking about this now. I can’t tell you anymore. I’ve said it. You’ve said it. I heard you, Steve. And I want your wrist now.” His hand goes to Steve’s chest, slides down it, dragging over him like he owns him, til he reaches his waistband. He gives that a tug, too. All of him, is what Bucky is telling him. Every part of him is being claimed now.

Or reclaimed.

Steve is who he is. He loves Bucky Barnes more than he loves himself. Which kind of makes everything go quiet and gives him a similar comforting peace to what the cage does.

“It’s so hard,” Steve says. Which is what he always used to say when he was worn down by life and crying into Bucky’s shirt.

Bucky nods. “Then I’ll be sweet to you,” he says. Because that was what he always promised.

The things they did, the games they played. It was different. It wasn’t sex. Steve had always gone to jerk off after, and he knew Bucky sometimes left him there on the couch or in bed all tied up to go jerk off but they didn’t _talk_ about it. There wasn’t kissing or declarations. Bucky went out and got laid and it was all somehow separate.

And it all stopped when Bucky shipped out. No mention of it made again during the war or after. Until now. “You’re gonna make me think you don’t want me to be happy,” Bucky says, the first hint of uncertainty Steve’s seen all night.

That was what Bucky’d said when he was the mad scientist, ‘don’t you want to make me happy?’ and Steve would do what the scientist wanted, anything to try and avoid his wrath or gain his love. A game. That had been a game. But, this is real and Bucky is using those words so it’s all so confusing. The second cuff opens and Bucky waits.

“I’m gonna be—”

“_Prove it_. Stop fucking saying it and do it then!” A sharp command and Steve puts his hand out, the cuff clicks shut. He looks at them. He’s so emotional all the sudden.

This is a mistake. Bucky doesn’t understand. He looks to him, pleading, eyes filling with tears and Bucky shoves him back so he’s lying on the couch, prowls up his body, takes hold of the small chain between the cuffs and forces Steve’s hands over his head.

He’s exposed now. He’s open and on offer. “I want to kiss you,” Bucky says, and he sounds almost as desperate as Steve feels.

“Then you do it,” Steve gets out.

He isn’t gentle. There’s a moment where he’s over Steve, hard cock off to the side so he doesn’t press on the cage, and he’s looking Steve in the eyes like he’s reading his mind. “You say stop and I stop,” he says, and _that’s_ gentle. He shifts, pulls the key to the cuffs out of his pocket and shows it to Steve, sets it on the coffee table. Reassuring him.

Also, gentle.

Bucky licks his lips and just waits. “Your eyelashes get all clumped together when you cry. It looks… perfect. I forgot that,” he says, talking to himself. 

Steve is breathing. That’s all. Breathing and waiting. Bucky is like a snake, poised and ready to strike. “You have to do something now,” Steve says, desperation beginning to claw at him.

“What do I _have_ to do? I used to leave you on the couch. I’d get you tied up and you’d put your head in my lap and you were all nice to me…for a change. Not a hint of that vinegar and orneriness you usually have.”

“If I was ornery you deserved it,” he says, swallowing hard. His throat is dry.

Bucky smiles at him, leans down and kisses him on the mouth, “Maybe I did.” He pulls back and just _looks _at Steve. Which is dumb.

“You see me all the fucking time,” Steve finally says.

“Nah. Not like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re still the little punk who’d let me tie him up and then look at me like I hung the fucking moon.”

Steve grunts and looks away because that’s a little too close to the truth. “How do I look at you now then?”

The silence stretches out. “Like you’re waiting for me to leave you,” Bucky says, and maybe he’s grieved the loss of them too. And isn’t that a fucking punch to the gut? “Stevie, I won’t.”

The impatience and desperation and vulnerability are coalescing inside of him and it’s weird and unpleasant and if his hands were free he’d be pushing down on that cock cage so he could feel something different. “What are you waiting for?”

Bucky frowns. “I don’t know.” He buries his face in Steve’s neck, mouths at his skin gently and breathes him in. “You smell the same.”

“I don’t know how I smell.”

“You smell like home and Brooklyn and war and…. I don’t know. I guess I never thought of what you smelled like but it’s a smell I’ve known all my life.” He breathes Steve in again, which means it’s gotta be decent.

Bucky is petting his arm, from the back of his hand, over the cuff and down like a piece of meat, seems absorbed with the line of his bicep and the soft, pale skin before his underarm.

As if Steve is a body he gets to touch just like he’d touch his own. Thank fuck, he thinks, closing his eyes. He bites his tongue so he doesn’t tell Bucky just to use him. However. _Wherever_. He can just act and Steve will undoubtedly love it. If for some strange reason he doesn’t love it, then he’ll endure it for Bucky, find a way and that’s…. He hopes he doesn’t like it. Well, that’s not quite right. He hopes it hurts. He hopes he falls apart and Bucky puts him back together again. Like he used to. “Please,” he begs.

He’s still on top of Steve but it all feels very tenuous. It’s a pause. Steve’s still waiting for the strike. “I want to grind my dick against you and it wouldn’t be gentle. I think it’s gonna take me a bit to work out what’s good. And good bad. Or just bad. What can I do?” Bucky asks, hand flirting with the edge of Steve’s shirt.

“I thought the point of this was so that you could do whatever you wanted with me?”

Bucky takes that as a yes, his fingers skate ticklishly up Steve’s side, over his ribs and to his pec. “I’m obsessed, you know. Do they feel different than before the serum?”

Steve tries to press his thigh harder into the couch so it creates a smidge more room for his swollen balls and cock. “I don’t know. No one touched them.”

“You must have touched them,” he argues, and Bucky frowns, pulls Steve’s shirt up and puts it over Steve’s head so his face is covered and his chest is exposed and it’s all bunched up near his underarms.

“Oh my god,” Steve says, and his hips twist, wanting to press against Bucky’s leg or cock or anything at all. He can’t see. Can’t see more than the shadow of Bucky. There’s a freedom in this. He doesn’t have to look anymore or keep his mouth closed. His face isn’t going to give him away.

The breath oozes out of him at the realization and Bucky makes a sound. “There you go, sweetheart,” he says, smug and pleased with himself that he’s gotten that reaction from Steve.

“I’d fucking hit you if I wasn’t tied up. I hate it when you talk to me like that.”

“That’s why you’re tied up, sweetheart. And now you don’t have to pretend you hate it because it’s already happening.”

There’s suddenly wetness on his nipple as Bucky puts his mouth on him. Steve pants and it’s loud, so loud, but if Bucky can’t see him maybe he doesn’t quite know. Lips and then stubble brush over the sensitive skin and all over his chest. Bucky’s warm tongue presses, his lips suck and Steve is shaking with how good it is. He whimpers at the pain in his groin but he doesn’t want it to end. He can take it.

“Do you ever think about how good it would feel if someone sucked your dick? I mean, you love this. You think about it, right?”

“_No_.”

“And if you like this, can you imagine how good it would feel to get your dick into warm, wet heat like this?”

“_No._”

“Do you want me to drop it or be mean to you?”

He’s gonna say drop it. “Mean how?” Because Steve wants to have all the information. That’s all. Definitely _not_ because he’s some kind of idiot who hears the possibility of something mean from Bucky and he wants to say yes, gets just as hard now as he did at 16.

Or at least he would if it wasn’t for the infernal cage. He arches and drops back down to the couch with the pain. Bucky kisses him.

“Like, keep telling you how good it is and that you should try it. Taunt you a little. Chastity is denial. Doesn’t that mean you like being denied?” It’s half question and half statement. Bucky’s making sure.

“Yeah, I like that,” he confesses.

“And you like… _not_ getting to come, right? That’s how you want to be broken down or get broken down?” he asks, and Steve can tell he’s choosing his words carefully. He wonders if there’s a list. He likes that Bucky is trying, might even be happy to find out he’d spent so long trying to figure Steve out he’d made notes. This time.

Steve licks his lips. All he tastes is his shirt. “That’s the fantasy. It’s where my mind goes. I’ve not done it with another person, but, yeah.”

“So, what’s the reward or the payoff if it isn’t coming?”

“Proving I can do it. Conquering it.” And, he remembers the last time he saw Bucky before he left, almost the last thing he said to him, that Steve only wanted to be in the army because he wanted to prove to himself he could do what other men did. Survive deprivation and hurt. Risk his life and stain his soul with blood. He could do anything other men could do.

So much of his life was the fight and proving he was strong enough. At some point he’d decided to embrace the pain. Any pain. All pain.

Other men might be ruled by their dicks, but he wasn’t. The serum had changed his body, every atom of his being but there was some part of him that was still him and he wasn’t owned by this body’s desires or abilities.

And it’s an assertion of his own autonomy. It’s a physical manifestation of his need to be reduced to who he used to be, something that gets used rather than uses.

And then he’s protected at the same time. He is available for everything and denied everything. He is only access and holes. He can’t explain that. It doesn’t make sense to him half the time, it just _feels _right.

“And what do you want from me?” Bucky asks, gentle, maybe a little worried. “Do I even fit into this or am I just… being an asshole and making you give me things you don’t want to?”

“Take this stupid shirt off my face,” he says. Bucky sighs dramatically and pulls it down. Steve blinks at the light. He brings his arms down so they’re around Bucky’s neck. “You’d never make me do something I didn’t want to do. Not really. You always know when to stop or what I really want. And if you don’t I’ll hit you.” Bucky lays on top of Steve like he’s a pillow and waits. “What do you want to happen here, Buck?”

He lifts his head, gives Steve a look that’s so heated and demanding Steve almost asks for the shirt to go back. He blushes, feels hot all over to be the subject of such desire. “I want everything,” Bucky says, and he puts a hand down, over the metal of the cage. That weight, the relief and agony of pressure on him makes Steve moan and arch into it then drop back down with a pained gasp.

“God, that’s sexier than it has any right to be. I want everything to do with this and you,” he says, kissing Steve gently. “I swear.”

It hurts for Steve to be honest with him. But he has to and it has to be now while they can still turn back. “I don’t want to give it up.”

“I’m not asking you to. I get it. I feel like it makes sense for you in a weird way. It’s very… twisted. But, I think if you look at the lives we’ve led they’re definitely all fucked up, anyway. It’s like this secret,” he says, watching his hand trace the shape of Steve through his clothing and the cage. He looks back at Steve, utterly serious. “You can have secrets but you shouldn’t have them from me.”

Steve rolls his eyes. It’s such a ridiculous thing to say but it’s also very, very Bucky. “No, I mean it. The idea of you having secrets from me, or of you with someone else makes me crazy. You’re mine. I just made do with what parts I thought were available. There’s more to you so I want it. Possibly, that’s a little twisted too.”

“The cage is very limiting, I’m not sure you’d be content with it for very long.”

“You like it when it hurts?” Bucky asks, hand pressing on the cage until Steve whimpers.

Steve chews on his lower lip for a moment. “Yeah.”

“If you cry do I get to hold you, even though you’re a giant now?”

“I fucking hope so,” he says, and he blinks back tears. “I want you,” Steve whispers. “I don’t understand why we almost have each other but don’t. I don’t understand why we’re not living together and sharing a bed and all of it. What’s the fucking point of having survived all of that if we’re not even together?”

“I know, sweetheart.” His smile is wobbly, too. “I think I see it, Stevie. You and us and the possibilities. Like it used to be but… more. We can make it work.”

“Bucky,” he says again, wanting to be kissed. Bucky comes close, lips hovering a heartbeat away. Steve wants. Bucky knows he wants. Bucky smiles slowly at him.

_Oh, fuck_. Bucky’s starting now. He squeezes Bucky in his arms and nods. No more kisses. No more gentle. “I’ll always stop, Steve.”

He knows. That’s all the same from before, too. He’s not sure Bucky’s ever wanted to hurt him, so much as he’s always wanted all of Steve. That’s what he’s used to. That’s what he lost when the serum changed him. That greediness that hovered around Bucky when he’d looked at Steve. As if Steve was just about to be taken from him and so he always wanted to cling and have and keep him.

“I want you to come. Because of me,” Steve says.

Bucky does give him a kiss for that. “I want you to fall apart and say my name,” Bucky says, like a counter-offer.

Steve bites his lip. He should offer to take the cage off. Bucky shakes his head. “I don’t need to take the cage off of you for that, do I?” Bucky asks, wrapping an arm around Steve’s lower back and hauling him close, groin to groin.

“Fuck,” Steve gasps and the handcuffs make a sound as he tries to pull and wrap Bucky in his arms. He seeks out Bucky’s mouth, needing it and Bucky kisses him, hard and a little sloppy and so damned perfect he can’t hardly stand it.

Bucky puts him flat on his back again and covers Steve with his weight, pressing into the cage like it isn’t there, like he’s going to rub his hard cock against Steve’s hard cock and they’re going to rut against each other until they both come.

Steve makes little sounds with each thrust, tries to meet him and adjust, make them more bearable as he’s painfully squashed. He isn’t in front of the pain and he can’t anticipate it. It’s just happening to him and anything he does to accommodate, relax or tilt or exhale, it’s all a fraction of a second too late because Bucky is the one leading and demanding and taking from Steve.

This pace and aggression isn’t what he’s used to from the cage. The steady ache, the constant throb of denial he thinks of as safe and calming is in the background, almost unnoticeable to this unrecognizable and focused pain that ebbs and grows. 

“Stevie, sweetheart,” Bucky murmurs, a hand on Steve’s hip as he adjust him a little. Steve shudders and grunts, breathes raggedly. “You sound like you’re about to fucking come all over me. You sound like you love this,” he says, grinding into Steve so hard he loses all sense of what Bucky was saying and cries out hoarsely.

“Yeah,” he whispers, but he doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to. He is noisy and writhing. “Please, oh fuck, _please_,” Steve gasps, hips tilting, accommodating, trying to make it less and more, stay in the moment and not let the pain just carry him away.

“But you’re not going to come, are you?”

“Um, don’t think so. No.” Bucky’s kisses turn gentler, deeper and somehow more invasive. As if all of his attention has suddenly narrowed down to just Steve and the reactions he can get from him with his tongue and his hips.

Steve is just there to be kissed, to be a mouth that’s plundered. He’s there as a body for Bucky to rut against and press his cock against. Steve whimpers and tries to breathe. Bucky is so oppressive it’s like he’s trying to consume Steve’s pain, memorize each twist and gasp.

Steve’s underwear feels wet as it rubs against him and he knows he’s leaking all over, that the constant grind and the deep chasm of frustrated lust is spilling out of him ever so slowly and torturously. “Are you okay?” Bucky whispers into his mouth. “Do you like it or not?”

“I don’t know. But, don’t stop.” So, of course Bucky stops, all concern and checking in with him. He could cry with the loss of him.

He’s good and he’s fragile. His limbs are trembling. They’ve been locked up as he tries to protect himself from the agony.

Bucky asks about the cuffs and if he’s too heavy. He has some bullshit reason that he’s playing with Steve’s nipples and stroking the inside of Steve’s thighs, giving him time to settle down a little bit. At least that’s what he says, but it’s actually just making Steve needier and driving him out of his mind. He gets deep pains in his groin, stabs and throbs as his body protests the confinement and hurt.

He’s not sure how many times he would have come if not for the cage. Enough to be embarrassing. Enough to be slow and tired, to just let Bucky do whatever he wanted with him. Instead, Steve feels jittery and like he might bite through his own lip in a minute if Bucky doesn’t give him more.

“You have to tell me if it’s good or bad, Steve. I know it hurts you and I… that’s not a thing to like. But, you do, don’t you?”

“What does it mean if I do?” Steve asks, like Bucky is the priest who’s going to help him save his immortal soul.

“Nothing. None of it means anything as long as it’s good for us.” He gives Steve a kiss and his hand is dropping down, he’s expecting a touch on his cage but it doesn’t come. Bucky’s adjusting himself in his pants.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks.

He takes a moment to answer. “ Yeah, I’m okay. It hurts me, too. Just a little. A little is okay,” Bucky says, smiling. Steve’s gut tells him that’s a lie despite how sincere and sweet Bucky is being.

“What are you not saying?” Steve asks. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll likely make up something worse.”

“Steve, it’s nothing. I promise. The metal just kind of…surprises me, I guess. But, it’s easy to get used to. And, I want to be with you. We all have our baggage and it doesn’t matter because there is nothing that would make me not want you.”

“No,” he breathes, because it’s one thing for him to hurt but Bucky’s been hurt enough in his life and Steve only wants to bring him pleasure.

“It reminds you of being the Winter Soldier.”

“A lot of things remind me of being the Winter Soldier. News reports, the hum of electricity, the smell of gasoline. It really doesn’t mean anything. 

“That’s different than a literal cage. I should—“ He’s going to say take the cage off but Bucky is kissing him, forcefully shutting him up.

“You don’t take it off for me,” Bucky says, two hands holding Steve’s face as he looks at him. “This isn’t about the cage anymore, this is us.” His cheeks are flushed, his lips shiny and slightly swollen from kisses. He rubs a finger over Steve’s lips, pushes inside and Steve closes his mouth, sucking and wanting more. He wants to put his mouth on every inch of Bucky and know what he tastes like. How he reacts to Steve’s touch.

Bucky pulls his finger free and kisses him slowly, like he’s thinking and kissing at once. “In fact, let’s come up with a date. We won’t even discuss taking it off until a certain point in the future. I think we should have the intention that it stays on forever. It isn’t a deal breaker for me. Okay?” Steve nods. “With two exceptions,” Bucky says, and Steve sighs heavily. Of course. “Cleaning and to make sure I haven’t hurt you.”

Steve frowns at him. “Hurt me?”

“Like this. Are you going to bruise from this? How will you be after a few days of constant denial when you want to come? I’ll want to check on you and then we can put it back on.”

“Firstly, I love the idea of a date in the future. And you not asking me to take it off, stopping me,” he holds Bucky tight against him, such a profound sense of love and giddiness going through him he almost laughs. Bucky can be so easily accepting sometimes. “Thank you for stopping me from offering,” he says, kissing Bucky’s neck which makes him grind his cock into Steve’s thigh… the cage getting pressed into him by Bucky’s hip.

“Ummm,” Steve groans or moans or something because it’s awful but it might also be good.

“Is that too much? I wanted somewhere soft,” Bucky murmurs into his skin. “Well, softer. You’ve got a lot of very firm muscle,” he’s smiling at Steve so it’s not malicious, but Steve doesn’t see any reason to smile.

“Why would you want this or me if I’m not soft?” he asks, not sure why this has never occurred to him before. Women are soft. Any other man in the entire fucking world is softer than he is. With a sudden flash of betrayal he hates the cock cage. It’s supposed to protect him and make things better, not cost him Bucky or drive him to someone else.

“Don’t. You have plenty of soft places,” Bucky says. “I’m not worried.”

“You can fuck me,” he offers. “And, you know, there’s my mouth.”

Bucky pulls back to look down at him. “I can’t tell if you want that or feel like you need to offer it in necessity.”

“I want it,” he says. He does. A lot. “I will, um, always be happy to give that to you if you want it,” he says, and then he undermines it all by shrugging like he can take it or leave it.

Steve is playing it too cool, he knows that. But he can’t tell Bucky that he wants to be used. That he has two holes and Bucky should just have him whenever. All the time. He’s never even done either of those things. He can’t make promises he might not be able to keep. Maybe he’ll hate deep throating or having to swallow come. Maybe he won’t like anal sex or being sore like he thinks he will.

He doesn’t want to get Bucky’s hopes up if he can’t deliver…. And he doesn’t want Bucky to think he’s so pathetic and cock hungry. Some caricature of a slut who’s always up for it. Maybe people like that in porn, but that’s not the guy one cuddles on the couch with and settles down with. Whatever Bucky gives him is going to be enough.

The cage is already plenty to deal with. Bucky grinds against him. Steve shudders. “Is that how you imagine it going? Me getting off in you and leaving you untouched?” The words are low, almost a growl. He doesn’t know that tone of voice. Is Bucky frustrated? Does he not like that idea?

“Stop trying to figure out what I want. Tell me if _you_ want that,” Bucky demands, and he puts his hand under Steve’s balls, pressing them up high, cage lifted up, a different hurt, balls agony at the soft touch.

“Yes, yes. I’m sorry, yes,” he gasps, and Bucky ever so carefully lets him go. Tears come to his eyes. It isn’t the pain but the confession. “I want that so badly. Anytime you want me. N-need me.”

“We’ll try it, and if you don’t like it, you say.”

He nods, presses kisses to Bucky’s jaw and cheek. “Right. Um,” Bucky takes a deep breath. “Let’s start slower. Let’s find a date to discuss the cage again and then I want to come,” Bucky says, matter of factly. 

“Week?” Steve offers.

“Month?” Bucky says.

“A week is good. Just to talk about it.”

“Just to talk. I’m assuming it stays. Don’t worry about it.”

Steve snorts. He’s going to fucking worry about it. “Do you really not mind?”

“If your hands weren’t cuffed you could feel how hard I am just thinking about all the things I want to do to you.”

“I can touch you with them on. Kiss me and let me feel you?” he asks, wanting to feel Bucky’s cock again. The heavy weight of it. Hard and hot in his hands. Come spilling over him and on him.

Bucky groans, pulls Steve’s hands down and is about to kiss him when he moves away, lithe and easy, off the couch, pulling Steve up by the cuffs. Denying him.

His underwear is so wet from where come has been forced out of him, aroused and leaking even though he’s forced to stay soft.

Bucky drags him out of the living room. Steve goes willingly. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta da! Just under the wire. Please comment. I'll be your best friend.

Steve’s not sure what to expect. Bucky stops in the hallway outside his bedroom and presses Steve against the wall with a hand, telling Steve without words to obey. It’s not hard or insistent but _expected_. Bucky wants this and Steve will go.

Steve loves that.

He’s reaching for Bucky, trying to pull him into a kiss, maybe more, but Bucky doesn’t let him get closer, has a hand on his collarbone that ever so gently pins him there, body and mouth just out of reach.

“Why’d we stop?” The bedroom is so fucking close.

“I have a question for you. Obviously, you can say no. We can do it some other time or never, but I…um, I mentioned, I think, that I did some research on cock cages and I may have read some stuff guys had posted on why they liked it and…. And I may have seen a video of something that looked pretty amazing.”

“If you want it, let’s do it,” Steve says, quickly. Bucky blushes. _Blushes_. And now he’s looking down, he won’t even look at Steve which means it’s going to be a big deal.

“The thing is,” Bucky says, “It’s not even really for me. It’s actually to help you out.”

Steve laughs. A shiver of excitement goes through him, like he’s about to dive out of a plane without a parachute. “I’ve told you I’ll do it if it’s something you want. Why are you still trying to sell me?”

Bucky does the lip licking thing and Steve leans in, doesn’t stop when Bucky gently presses him away, just moves forward and Bucky relents, lets Steve close so he can kiss his neck. “Please, please,” he whispers, just wanting more and more, every last bit of Bucky. Maybe if he just sank to the ground and opened his mouth he could move this along. God, he wishes he could do that. Wishes he was that brave.

“Don’t you think we need to make sure?” Bucky asks. His voice is steady.

“Sure of what?” Steve asks, getting so distracted he’s not paying enough attention. He can hardly get the words out he’s so needy. Bucky runs his hands up and down Steve’s back for a moment like he’s trying to figure out how to make it happen.

Steve stops and pulls back, looks at Bucky’s face. Worried and… something. Oh fuck. He’s going to do something beautifully devastating to Steve and Bucky wants it. Badly. He’s scheming hard if he’s this distracted.

“I’ll do it. Just tell me,” he offers.

Bucky huffs a laugh and rolls his eyes. “Sometimes, I think that punk who used to love getting the crap beaten out of him in alleys is gone. Apparently not. Um, I just think we need to make sure that you don’t want to fuck a woman. That you’re content without a pussy to empty into. You might want to feel what it’s like at some point. Then where will I be?” he asks, like it’s a reasonable concern. Bucky kisses him until Steve is a little senseless, resolve weakening.

“I can’t,” he starts, because that’s a real no. He isn’t having sex with a woman. Or taking the cage off to fuck a woman. _Ever._ Is Bucky really asking him to do that?

“Shh, I know, baby.” He kisses Steve on the nose. “I don’t want that. I’d be heart broken. It scares me how much you could hurt me,” Bucky murmurs. He nuzzles Steve’s neck. Lulling him, making it difficult to think.

_I love you_, he almost says. “Jesus, fuck. Just tell me what you _want_,” Steve demands, instead, and he pushes his cock into Bucky’s thigh and the pain spasms all through him in a way that’s gloriously awful.

“I was just so annoyed, Stevie. So mad you’d make me come and then walk out on me,” Bucky says, eyes brilliantly blue as they search Steve’s.

That’s not exactly how it happened, but he’s not going to quibble when there’s this massive thing Bucky is working up to demanding of him and Steve is desperate to know what it is. “I’ll make it up to you. Anything you want,” Steve says.

He gets a hand between his legs, stroking his perineum, and the crease of his thigh where there’s a hint of sensation, nowhere good enough to come or get to that level but he needs something, has to touch himself in a way that’s not cold and brutal.

Maybe it’s all the kissing or the way Bucky keeps touching him gently but he wants something soft. The wet, slick give of Bucky’s mouth or lips and a tongue on his hole, slick and kind. He just wants to feel something and with give.

It should be him doing things to Bucky and he wants that, it’s really all he thinks about, but there’s something so difficult and overwhelming about having the man he’s always wanted, and being in so much pain while it’s happening, that the craving for something kind is exacerbated.

“Do you mean it, baby? I went online and I bought you something. A toy. Sort of like the real thing but for _us_. You need to know what you’re missing,” Bucky says, hands on Steve’s pec while the other slips down Steve’s ass, grabbing him at the crease, where his thigh meets his ass, fingers so close to the absolute center of him.

“I can’t think,” Steve breathes.

Steve isn’t even sure how to respond. The possible fuckedupness of whatever Bucky is orchestrating here is kind of beyond what his imagination is capable of. And yet, the idea of Bucky so annoyed with him that he came up with this bizarre punishment is fucking hot. Because, make no mistake, this is meant to be a punishment. “Is it soft?” he asks, the question stupid but he needs it to be a little kind.

Bucky chuckles. “Oh, sweetheart. It is actually. So soft and good.”

“Is it… you’re doing it to hurt me, right?”

Bucky kisses him on the mouth. “I’m honestly not sure. You’ll have to decide if it’s a punishment or not. But, if it’s too much then we won’t, Steve.”

He nods. Bucky likes that. More roaming hands and pressing kisses, dragging him back down into a needy mess. “You’re so sweet to me. So good, Stevie. And, it’s only fair. I fucked your hand, came all over it. And you didn’t come at all. Couldn’t even pretend for me. God, I felt so guilty. You don’t want that, do you, Steve?”

And here’s the thing about their many years together and all the shit they put each other through and tricks they pulled. He can hear just the slightest variation in Bucky’s voice, knows how deliberate this is and it’s a reflex to drag himself together and not give in to a haze of lust.

What bullshit had he said? Guilty? He tries very hard to keep a straight face. “No, Bucky. I really don’t want that.” It’s getting weirder. Steve’s intrigued. “But, if you don’t tell me soon I may decide to just go to bed.”

“Hmm,” Bucky says, but he doesn’t get sidetracked. “And it was embarrassing, Stevie. To just do that in front of you and you just watched me.”

“I didn’t just _watch_ you,” Steve says, annoyed.

“This is going to even the scales.”

“I’ll do it. I told you. I just… a little sweet. That’s all I need,” he blushes. “As long as I know you want it, I’ll do it.”

“Of course, baby. Come see. It’s all set up in the bedroom.”

Steve sighs. “Of course it is. I thought I heard a trap slamming shut.”

“Says the man who literally traps himself.”

_Oh, fuck_, he thinks, the link between what he does and why seeming to be more complicated and obvious all the time.

***

The first thing Steve sees is a stand Bucky has made out of PVC. “You did DIY for this?”

“Like I said, I had something I specifically wanted.”

Steve’s trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. He knows what Bucky’s bedroom usually looks like. And it’s much the same, except very tidy and with this contraption pressed against the foot of the bed. “It looks like a miniature soccer goal.”

Except for a square in the middle which has some weird cylinder tightened into place with screws. “Why does it look like….”

He can’t say it. He looks away, blushing. He shakes his head. He doesn’t think he can do this. Bucky goes over to what is, most definitely, a silicone vagina and touches one of the folds gently. “It’s called a fleshlight. If you weren’t all caged up and were just some horny guy who was sick of using his hand you could fuck it. It’s soft and nice inside. You put some lube in and it’s not bad. I wish it was easier to clean but nothing is perfect.”

Steve doesn’t want to. He doesn’t. No one has given this message to his cock. His cock is trying to get hard. Trying, failing. The pain is exquisite. So good his knees might buckle. Bucky is watching him.

“Come on, step right up,” he says, like it’s a god damned carnival.

“I’m locked up.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t see what the idea is about.”

He glares at him. Bucky’s got his watch out. “You know what,” Bucky says, like the thought is just now occurring to him. “Five minutes is plenty of time for us to know. And, if it’s really horrible and difficult for you, so long as you make a good effort, I’ll stop at three.”

“What is with you and keeping time? So, what? I pretend I’m fucking this thing for three minutes and what are you going to do?” How is he considering this? God, Steve aches. Bucky comes over to him, kissing him like he’s fragile.

“Didn’t you just say you wanted sweet? I promise you it is. And I’ll be here the whole time. I want to see you do this and I’ll help you. If you want.” How is Bucky going to help him?

It’s awful. It’s humiliating. He is curious. Bucky wants this. And, the truth is, that the absolute humiliation and wrongness of the situation is kind of sickeningly appealing.

Steve nods and Bucky starts the timer, giving him space so he can step up to what’s basically an empty tennis ball container with a fake, glistening vagina on the end, that he’s supposed to see and desperately want to put his dick into. He can’t make himself move. “I can’t do it. You have to make me if you want this.”

Bucky makes a hmm sound. “It’s awkward, I’ll give you that much. All you have to do is follow directions. Move in closer. Good. Try pressing, just push and see if it goes in.”

Steve’s breathing picks up, his face is pink. Fuck, he’d be so hard if he wasn’t locked up. He presses his hips forward, just a little, the metal of the cage compressing his balls as he pushes directly on it. He groans at the discomfort of that and then the silicone is ever so gently touching his cock through the rings. It’s weird and slick, sticky.

He gasps.

Bucky reaches down to adjust himself which makes it easier. Bucky wants this. “Oh my god, Steve. You have no idea how hard this is making me.” Which makes it worth it. He does it again.

“There you go. It’s good, isn’t it?” Bucky’s gaze is fixated on Steve’s cock and the fake vagina. “You just have to get used to it. Harder, get inside. It’s warm and soft and wet inside that pussy, Steve.”

He hates that word. If he bitches, Bucky will say it more. He does a little push but nothing happens. He can’t get the lips to split and let him inside. He wiggles a little and the lips part. He shuffles forward again but it’s shallow and it isn’t working. He huffs in annoyance and throws Bucky a glare. “You said you were going to help me.”

Kisses, pinches to his nipples, hard rubbing on his perineum that has him twitching forward and groaning as he works to get in again. Increasing his frustration wasn’t what he had in mind but apparently it’s effective because Steve is trying rather desperately to press into this stupid toy and make Bucky happy. 

“Good. There you go,” Bucky says, and there’s a hand on the back of his neck squeezing. A shudder goes through Steve. His cock tries to come, come filling his balls, that shaky feeling, tension pulled taut, and he fucks forward hard, unexpected and with no warning.

He’s never felt like this. He might hate it. He fucking loves it. “Help me. Fuck. _Please_.” He begs, utterly desperate.

“You’re perfect,” Bucky says, voice rough and hungry, enough to keep Steve going. “So good,” Bucky presses his forehead to his, cupping his face as Steve breathes and tries to stop trembling. Bucky is close to him, takes some of Steve’s weight.

“Want to touch you with my hands,” Steve begs.

“Soon, sweetheart. You’re doing so good.” He rubs a hand low on Steve’s stomach which feels weirdly comforting. “Get on your tip toes, hook the head of your cage in at the top where there’s more of a separation. Then you can slide down the parted lips and push in.”

“Tip toes,” Steve repeats. He obeys in a haze. The head of his cage catches. He lowers his feet and his cock slides off, out. He groans in frustration. “This is so stupid.”

“No. Try again. Hips forward, though. When you went down to your heels you moved back. Get closer. You’re mounting her, Steve. You’ve gotta get into that pussy.” Bucky’s voice has gone rough and Steve looks at him, at his flushed cheeks and the, oh fuck, the bulge in his pants that shows that Bucky is hard and huge.

His heart is pounding and the metal is pressed against the slit of his cock. His eyes are closed so he doesn’t have to see the stupid thing. He’s thinking about Bucky being hard and how much he wishes he didn’t have this cage on because he desperately needs to come, needs to be hard.

It’s a weird phantom ache, the desire to be achingly full and aroused since he’s spent so long denying himself. “I just… I just want to come. I need to come.”Desperation makes him get the words out.

Bucky murmurs to him, holds him. “Some men can.”

Steve shakes his head, “I can’t. Never have. Think it’s too tight on my balls or the base of my shaft, I don’t know but I can’t. And it’s already like I’ve tried once and it just hurts so much now.” He doesn’t cry but he’s weak.

Bucky gives him a moment and then steps up behind him, “It’s okay. Let me help you. Just a little. So you have a taste of it, know why it’s worthwhile, yeah?”

Bucky’s a wall of heat behind him. He can smell Bucky’s cologne. Since the serum Bucky doesn’t get close to him, anymore. Not like he used to, when he’d cuddle up next to Steve to keep him warm, drag him close, ignore Steve’s protests (which were usually pretty half-hearted) and do what he thought was best.

Really, a lot of his youth had been spent with Bucky manhandling him and deciding what was best for Steve. Predicated on the assumption that Steve was a bit of an idiot who’d freeze to death in the snow with a warm jacket next to him.

Obviously, Steve wasn’t an idiot.

He’d just liked to get in trouble and have Bucky get him out of it. He’d like it when Bucky would make a decision, put his foot down, his will stronger than Steve’s resistance. And he supposes that was really the only time he’d ever had anything close to a normal sex drive. Like, get hard and jerk off type of sex drive.

And now here Bucky was, close and intimate like Brooklyn, one hand on Steve’s hip and the other reaching in front of him, his finger extended as Bucky gently touches the fake pussy in front of him. His finger sinks in at the top, slides down and Steve moans a little, cutting it off as soon as he realizes.

“Exactly, Stevie. So good. Here you go, I’m holding her open for you, just a little closer.” The hand on his hip is urging him forward, to sink his cock into the toy and he does. He gasps at the weirdness of it. It’s good but it’s nothing compared to Bucky touching him, urging him on, watching him… getting hard for him.

“What do I do now?” he whispers, and the hand on his hip clenches.

“You’re sinking into her, right? So you go deep, deep as you can, til your balls are against her and getting squished, that feels good you know, and then you pull out, just a little and shove back in. You can grind and rock into her, do what feels good. You’ve got two minutes left,” he says. Bucky’s hand moves to his back. “Two minutes is nothing. Give it to her, Steve. Pound into her.”

He tries moving his hips gently, back and forth, squish and withdraw. It sucks at him, trying to draw him in. It’s so sticky and Bucky’s hand is rubbing circles into his lower back, encouraging him, an anchor to make it all worthwhile. “Wiggle in, get deeper,” Bucky says, eagerly.

He tries, but the embarrassment is there. And then the lock seems to catch on something and the toy opens a bit more, to where it’s really wet and slippery and he’s in there. He groans. That’s good.

“There you go. You in? Fuck her. Come on, Steve. Fuck her. You gonna empty your balls into her? Fill her up with your come?”

“Hurts, Buck.” And, of course it does. It’s fucking horrible and he’s on the edge of orgasm again, it’s just out of reach, it’s lurking in all that pain and if he can get a hold of it, fuck into _that_ then he’ll come.

“You want it?”

“I want it. Yeah, I want it.” He grinds and fucks and god it’s good. Something is building low in his gut and he just…. A little harder, maybe faster and deeper and so he pulls back a little more and he loses it, he’s out of the toy and he stumbles back into Bucky who gets him back into position with strong arms and a firm grip. “You’ve still got a minute. Go ahead, get back into her.”

“Help me,” He gasps. “Open it up for me.”

Hand on his neck, squeezing tight. It’s Bucky’s mean voice now. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You need to want this for you. Show me you want it, Steve.”

He tries again, the moment he heard that tone of voice, he went back onto his tip toes, trying to catch the seam of the toy’s lips and sink inside. He huffs and struggles. It catches and he moans in anticipation. He’s got it and he’s going to be feeling that slickness again and then he’s going to come. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it— _fuck_. No, no,” he begs, sliding out and off. He hunches forward in agonized denial. He’d swear he had it.

“Try again. You’re doing so good.”

“Bucky,” he begs.

“What do you want, sweetheart? Tell me and you can have it.”

Steve doesn’t know.

“I think you want that puss, Steve. Go ahead.” He doesn’t want that, but he doesn’t know what he does want so he tries. Again, he thinks he’s got it, and it slips out. The frustration is unbearable.

“I just can’t,” he says, so close to tears, and coming, and cutting off the fucking cage so he doesn’t go insane.

“Don’t give up. Thirty seconds. It can be good. If you get it, I’ll give you a little longer. You need a little break to feel good. Come on, sweetheart. Go ahead.”

Tip toes, fuck forward, he hooks in hard, so hard the frame moves, jostles and Bucky grabs it, holding it still, which is perfect because Steve is deep and in it like he was before but even deeper. He’s going to come. He thrusts over and over, suddenly mindless with it.

“Is it good?”

“It hurts. I wanna be hard. Need to. Need _you_. Tell me—” he doesn’t know. He just needs Bucky’s voice.

“God, you would be, too. Plunging into that tight heat, all that wetness sliding along you, you’d be coming in no time, wouldn’t you, Steve?”

“Please, please make me. I need to….”

“Poor baby, can you imagine it? Cage off and so hard you’d be dripping and begging and I could bring you back here, let you get close to that edge, to just filling up that puss with so much come Steve, and you know what, sweetheart?”

“What?” He asks, barely aware of anything except pain and sensation.

“I still wouldn’t let you come. I’d stop you then, too. Deny you.” Bucky’s hand goes hard into Steve’s hair, yanking his head back and he’s close, his cock shoved hard between Steve’s cheeks as he forces Steve deep into the pussy with his hips.

And he knows, on some instinctive level that if he was fucking for real and shoved forward just like this, when he’s teetering so close to the edge, that his balls would be unloading and he’d be spasming and releasing and then floating and blissful.

It’s a horrible primitive response and it floods through him, but he’s soft and he can’t come and so he shudders and he shakes, and he almost comes and it’s so much he can’t even cry out and beg for it to stop. He just has to wait for it to pass, wait and wait and trust that Bucky won’t let him go, will keep him safe and protected.

“Beautiful. So beautiful. I wish we’d filmed it. I’d watch it over and over again, jerking off to it. Fuck, Steve.” He comes back to himself enough to hear the words and understand them. He slumps backwards, stares down at his cock as it slips out of the toy. It’s throbbing and hard all around the metal. His cock is sticky and covered in lube. His balls are throbbing and red, his cock is a deep, angry color. Purple like a bruise. “Jesus. That’s gotta hurt. What do we do now?” Bucky asks.

Steve almost crumples. “I don’t know. I don’t do it this way.” There’s an edge of hysteria creeping in.

“Okay. Well, in my non-expert opinion, I think you need some kind of release. It will be good for you to get a little of this out.”

He shakes his head. That’s not right. “You don’t get it.”

“What don’t I get?”

He doesn’t want to admit it. It’s too embarrassing. “Untie me. I can’t do this anymore,”he says, turning away from the stupid fleshlight. 

“Hey, hey, hey. Tell me, sweetheart. You’ve been amazing. So good,” he says, and he’s in front of Steve, holding him by the biceps, all concern and patience. “We’re gonna get through this. I’ll take care of you, I swear.”

_Be sweet to me_, Steve thinks, very loudly and he bites his tongue so he doesn’t beg for it.

“Do you leak at all?” Bucky asks, kissing Steve’s cheek.

“Um, sometimes.”

“That means you’re really turned on. Let’s see, Steve. Let me look,” he whispers, and he touches the cage. Lifts it gently in his hands to see the tip of Steve’s cock. His finger touches Steve and he shudders, coming, or some version of it that’s complete white blinding pleasure and then pain as his shaft doesn’t fill with semen and there’s a rush of blood to get him hard that has nowhere to go.

“Try, sweetheart,” Bucky urges, one hand on Steve’s perineum, massaging and Steve feels something happen deep inside him and where Bucky’s touching. The contraction, endless pressure, relaxation. “Fuck,” Steve manages and his cock dribbles come.

There’s no shocks of pleasure or anything like that. Just a ruined little orgasm that makes him feel even more twitchy and needy. Bucky makes a shushing sound, soothing and is somehow even closer to him. His free hand cups Steve’s balls gently in his palm, feels them spasming.

“Was it good?” Bucky asks him, his own hard cock grinding against Steve.

“No, it was horrible.”

Bucky looks at his face, sees the tears running freely down his cheeks, like once one dam burst, the other went too. Bucky’s hands are filled with Steve’s balls and his cock, or else he knows Bucky would wipe them away, just like he used to.

Bucky leans in, licks them instead, kisses them off Steve’s face and Steve is frozen there, terrified of doing something to fuck up this perfect moment. This moment that will be in all of his fantasies for years to come. The deep pain of arousal, the hot ache of frustration, the grief of a ruined orgasm and Bucky holding his balls sweetly, the architect of it all, there to witness it and steer it and now to make it better by comforting him with the press of his lips to his skin. And all the while he has no idea if he feels good or bad.

“Please. Please come and let me see you,” Steve begs.

Bucky takes his hand away from Steve’s dick, gets his dick in his hand and uses the small amount of Steve’s come as slick as he starts to jack himself off.

“Is it good?” Steve asks, watching hungrily, nauseous with jealousy. Jealous of the easy pleasure but more jealous of Bucky’s hand.

“So good. It’s even better if I play with my balls. Look, Steve. See that?”

Steve swallows. His stomach is cramping he’s so full and miserable. “There’s going to be so much come,” Steve says, emotionally wrecked to be watching and have nothing. Isn’t this his? Didn’t he get Bucky here? Why doesn’t he get it inside him? Why isn’t it his mouth on Bucky’s cock?

“That’s right. Look, I’m leaking already. So close.”

And he is, he’s hard and he’s staring at Steve’s tear stained face and his abused cock, the agony of Steve yearning and being denied.Isn’t that something?

“Want to see me come in the pussy?”

“No.” He doesn’t. He can’t see that. That has nothing to do with him. That would be the worst possible thing. He licks his lips, trying to give Bucky the idea. His mouth. Use his mouth.

Bucky frowns. “I don’t have a tissue. How can we not have— _fuck_— tissues? Don’t want to make a mess,” he grits, clearly about to come. Bucky turns away from him, shoves into the fleshlight, pumps a few times while staring down at his cock disappearing and reappearing and Steve is devastated, feels almost lost with how suddenly deprived he is. Bucky uses a hand to hold the fleshlight steady as his hips piston in and out of it.

He makes a sound as Bucky fucks deep, wishing it was him. Bucky glances at him. His lips are a hard line. “Come here,” he orders, and Steve goes, eager. Bucky’s palm is open, out.

“Cock. Rest your balls in my hand so you have a better idea of what you’re missing.” He does, has to go to tiptoes again. Bucky is watching him, clearly wants it a little awkward.

“Fuck. I’m gonna come,” he says. His head goes back, his hips still, his hand clenches on Steve’s balls. Steve cries out and Bucky relaxes his grip.

“Don’t stop,” Steve gasps, thrusting into the grip, wanting it hard again. Bucky grips hard, balls squeezing against metal. It feels like he’s coming too. Coming with pain, from pain, the pleasure is so close to him, it’s Bucky’s and he has none of it. He has to see it and he doesn’t get any of it. This is destroying him.

Steve grinds into the grip, always willing to take more and harder. He’s shaking, trembling, as Bucky pulls down on Steve’s balls, the weight of the cage, the slickness of the lube making it slide down painfully. He cries out and he releases again. It hurts so much he can’t make a sound.

“Fuck. I feel it. I feel it. Let’s see,” Bucky says, pulling his cock out of the fleshlight and turning to Steve. His palm opens and Steve grunts, looks down, the smallest spill in Bucky’s hand.

“Need you,” he whispers, wrecked and beyond pride or self-preservation. He steps into Bucky’s arms, is pressed against his chest. His cock is next toBucky’s. He knows that but he can’t feel it. He tries not to break down sobbing.

Bucky’s cock is wet with come and lube. He didn’t get to see it or have it. He isn’t sure he can bear it.

Bucky holds him for several minutes, just stands there with him while Steve tries to get his body back under control. Tries to reason with himself that he’s making a big deal out of nothing.

His cock is locked away and he’s not coming. Didn’t Bucky do the same thing by using the fleshlight instead of Steve’s mouth or ass? Or does he just not want what Steve has to offer? He’d said he wanted it, Bucky had acknowledged that Steve wanted it, promised they’d try it and here was the first opportunity and Bucky denied him.

Was this part of him being cruel? Part of the punishment? Maybe if Bucky told him it was then it would be a bit easier to take. He can’t ask, though. Because he’s pretty sure it wasn’t. He’s pretty sure Bucky saw a good receptacle for his come and he used it. Better than Steve’s mouth or ass.

This has been so much. He’s exhausted and overwhelmed. He lets Bucky support him. His shoulders are shaking and Bucky is telling him it’s okay to cry. Oh fuck, is he crying?

“Do you hate me now?” Steve asks.

“What? Of course not. Nothing you do could make me hate you… unless you put me in one of those cages. I’d be pretty fucking salty then.”

Steve laughs like he’s supposed to. It’s watery and he’s positive he’s ruining Bucky’s shirt.

“Do you… hate me?” Bucky asks.

“No. You know I don’t,” Steve says, as close to a confession that he loved it and they both know it, as he can get. If only, at the very end, if Bucky had shoved him to the ground, had made him swallow, it would have been perfect. What a depraved thought.

“Things are a lot easier if you’re happy just sticking your dick into a hole,” Bucky says.

“There’s the story of my life. ‘Life would have been lot easier if….’ If I wasn’t so unbelievably ill. And, it would have been easier if I’d not been frozen for 70 years.”

“Or transformed into a super-soldier.”

“Yeah. That too.”

Bucky presses his forehead into Steve’s neck. A reminder that Steve is taller than him now. And that’s always difficult to believe. “And you… liked that? The pain was _good_?”

“The pain is the pleasure,” he says, after another long minute of leaning into Bucky, willing himself to be content with what he was given.

“Right,” Bucky says, like he’s thinking about it but he doesn’t believe it. “Um, I do want to take the cage off for a bit. Just to make sure you’re okay. I squeezed you hard there at the end and you were already so sore looking.”

“That was really fucking good,” Steve says, before he can think too much about it. “And, it’s okay to take it off as I have to get clean, anyway.”

Bucky huffs in laughter or disbelief and pulls back from him. “Good. We put it straight back on after, yeah? I’m gonna grab a tissue. You wanna stand up or sit down?”

He’s feeling pretty good now. But he’s also tired and…frazzled? Delicate? “Can I lay down?”

“Yeah, of course. Here. Hang on,” he gets the key to the cuffs out and undoes Steve’s hands. Bucky takes them in his, massaging each wrist and then the palms. He’s looking at what he’s doing and when he’s done he raises Steve’s hands to his mouth, kissing each one gently.

He leads Steve to the bed and lays him down on his back. Steve closes his eyes with a groan. He drifts off, which is rather surprising, and wakes up to Bucky beside him.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” Steve nods. “I’ll be quick, sweetheart.” Steve throws his arm over his face because this is so fucking arousing that it’s absolute torture. And he’s tired. He’s so tired that it’s hard to endure and the pleasure aspect of it all is hard to find. It’s just ache and agony.

“I’m sorry. I’ll be quick,” Bucky says, again, and there are hands on his groin. The gentle brush of fingers as he undoes the lock. It opens and Steve exhales shakily. It’s a good thing he’s lying down or he might faint. He lifts his arm away, opens his eyes and does, actually, see spots.

“Crap,” Steve says, his voice gravel and he tries to clear his throat. His arm is damp with tears. He takes deep breaths, slow and steady as Bucky gets the cage off him as well as the ring component. He grabs him at one point, hand over Bucky’s, both of them pressing down on his cock as he breathes.

“I think I need to see your face,” Bucky says.

Steve hates that idea. “I’ll cry if I do that.”

“Will you stop me or tell me if I’m hurting you? I just need to know. I kind of thought you’d have more to say.”

He nods. Bucky can’t see it. “Yeah, Buck.” He doesn’t think he could lower his hand anyway. He feels like he needs to be protected, like the wrong touch to his cock or his balls and all of him will explode.

The cage is off. He feels it. He has a moment of bliss and relaxation and then there’s pain, deep and stabbing in his balls and his cock as his body tries to figure out if he needs to be hard or not.

He rolls to Bucky, who’s sitting beside him and puts his head on his thigh while Bucky rubs his back, murmuring to him. Steve lifts his thigh a little, protecting himself, hiding his cock and balls from view and touch. And it takes a long time before he’s able to turn over again and let Bucky touch him.

“Do you want a cool washcloth or warm?”

“I don’t know,” he says.

“I’ll be right back.” He grabs Bucky’s arm and instantly lets go. It’s fine if Bucky leaves the room. He’s not actually leaving. He counts backwards from twenty to pass the time. He isn’t back when he hits one and he starts again, but is oddly panicky.

“Buck?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” he says, coming back in. He’s got a bowl full of water. He wrings it out and places the washcloth gently on Steve’s inner thigh, getting him used to the idea. “Do you… do you want to do this?”

He has no words. He’s just here. Waiting to be swept to sleep or death, to be warmed or left in the cold. Everything is beyond him.

He wants to tell Bucky that his cock is Bucky’s problem now. He’s got the key and the cage and has brought him down to nothing so this thing between his legs isn’t something he has to deal with from here on out. Obviously, that’s a little insane and he keeps his mouth shut.

Bucky nods at him, sees something on his face somehow and cups Steve’s face with his free hand. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’ll take care of you.”

“Leave?” he asks, because it bubbles out of him.

“Nope. I ain’t gonna leave, either. Not my Stevie.”

There’s still a pins and needles feeling in his cock and his balls and he still doesn’t know how to interpret it beyond _a lot_. Too much. He closes his eyes and Bucky wipes gently at the lube and come on his cock. It’s too much and he jerks. Bucky sighs. Puts the cloth down and dips his fingers into the bowl. There’s the gentlest touch on his cock, certain spots are delicately stroked, a spot check to make sure he’s okay. The attention to his cock and his balls is intense. He starts to get hard. Which hurts. He breathes through it.

_This._

The ache, the stabbing, the gentle touch, Bucky’s hands on him, telling him he’s okay. He’s getting hard, so hard and all he can do is pant and try not to twitch or shove into Bucky’s touch.

He’s hard, flush against his stomach. Which he hasn’t been in… years? He isn’t sure what to do with it or if he even _likes_ it. “Should I make you come? The cage won’t go back on like this.”

Should? What kind of question was that? He grabs onto Bucky’s shirt, hand over his pec and gliding down to fist in near his stomach. His hips twitch restlessly as he waits for Bucky to decide what he gets. He’s nerves, anxiety and fear.

“I don’t do that. I haven’t done that.”

“It’d be me doing it to you. Does that make it better?” What a ridiculous question. Of course it does. Does he have to say that out loud? Doesn’t Bucky know?

“I don’t know if I can,” Steve says. Can he come if someone jerks him off? How would Bucky’s hand feel on him? Christ, he wants that.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. Of course it will hurt too much.”

“What? No. The pain makes me want to say _yes_. As long as you’re the one doing it and you stay with me after. I think that might… I’ll cry. I think. I wouldn’t want to be alone for that.”

“I’ll stay with you. Would you want to touch yourself and make it happen?”

“No.”

Bucky seems surprised. Clearly that wasn’t the appropriate response. But, Steve’s tired. Things are already so fucked up between them that the only thing left is honesty and hope that somehow that makes them find some common ground.

“I have no desire to touch my dick and make myself come. If you want to do it then I can try but I’m—“

“Forget I brought it up. You were just hard and I thought maybe you’d like to feel good.” Bucky sighs, sounds uncertain. “And I guess I wanted to make you feel good since I spent all that time hurting you, but rest is more important. And I’m honestly not trying to destroy your boundaries.” It’s not meant as a dismissal or anything. He knows Bucky well enough to not get confused on his tone of voice. 

“I know. And, I’m the one who locked myself in a cage so don’t take too much blame.”

“How about I lay with you for awhile?”

He scoots over, trying not to wince as his balls press against his inner thigh. Bucky gets into bed behind Steve. Steve stays still, isn’t sure how much space to give him or if he should move more.

“Oh my god, you’re such a dork,” Bucky says, moving in close and putting his arm around Steve.

“Dork?” he asks, hoping his voice doesn’t waver from the emotion that’s hitting him with Bucky being so close and protective.

“Wanda.”

“Of course.” Who else would be calling Bucky a dork? Steve tries to dry his eyes in the pillow. Bucky lets him go for a second and he hears tissues coming out of the box. He hands them to Steve.

“Sweetheart,” Bucky says, gently and Steve wipes his eyes, blows his nose and presses back into him. “Turn over if you want.”

Yeah, he wants. Of course he wants. He can’t. Just like when they were kids, teenagers and young men. He can’t take what he wants. “Make me,” he whispers, voice breaking.

He can feel Bucky processing that, slightly tense. He squeezes Steve’s arm. “Over, Stevie. Now.” 

He does it because he has to, and Bucky kisses him on the forehead and pulls him close, rubbing his back. Steve can feel his heart beating. He can smell Bucky and touch him. It’s like Bucky is _his_.

Steve loves him. Bucky is it for him. He’d go to war for him, die for him, die without him, everything.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you, too. Go to sleep, baby. You earned it.”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck, yeah. It’s terrifying how hot that was.”

He thinks about asking questions or talking it out but sleep is dragging him under and _terrifyingly hot_ seems like a decent enough place to take a nap.

“As soon as we get up we’ll get the cage back on,” Bucky promises, but Steve is already drifting to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

***

Steve wakes up and he’s… loose. Free. It’s disturbing. He puts a hand down to touch himself, tacky with lube, cock hard and balls pulled up tight. They’re heavy. He’s massive when he’s aroused like this. He swallows but his throat is dry. Can he make it out of the bed and to the bathroom without waking Bucky?

His heartbeat kicks up, like he’s gone from sleep to jogging but he’s stilly lying down. He doesn’t think he’s going to panic, exactly, but fixing the current situation seems overwhelming.

He just needs to get up….And then he has to get _it_ to go down. And he needs his cage. Then he has to find his clothing. And get home. God, what if he has to jerk off to get it to go down? Very, very carefully he touches the head, the slit. It’s weeping and the desperate desire to keep touching himself is fucking annoying.

“Are you alright?” Bucky asks him, his voice rough from sleep.

“Not really. I should take a shower. Where is it?”

“I get that it was weird. And that you really put yourself out there andyou were… amazing. I hope you don’t regret it.” Bucky is looking at Steve like he genuinely desires him. Probably a trick of the light.

“I don’t regret it,” he confesses. He doesn’t. Not when it’s Bucky and Bucky wants him.His cock is somehow getting harder and he wants to rut against the bed. He wants to fuck Bucky’s thigh or lay on top of him and come on his stomach. He wants to be in Bucky’s mouth or in his hand. So many things he had locked away and now the cage has only been off for a few hours and he feels crazed with it. Bad crazed. His world needs to shrink.

It’s like Bucky knows. Bucky puts a hand on his neck and he loves that. He exhales, all of his attention being forced there, the ability to move taken away from him. Calm floods over him like warm water.

“Better. What’s going on?”

“I need it back. I don’t like how it feels,” Steve says. 

“How does it feel?” Bucky asks him, pressing up close and kissing his shoulder.

“Like I can’t control myself. Like I’ll be someone else.” Someone slutty and awful and unlovable. The things he’d beg for if he was always like this aren’t okay.

“I think you’re underestimating yourself. Wouldn’t be the first time. You always expect more of yourself than anyone else ever would.”

“You say that because you don’t know.”

“I’d like to,” Bucky says, very carefully. “You deserve to be loved for the best and worst parts of yourself and I wish you’d let me show you that I do.”

That’s a nice thing to say. And Bucky only says it because he doesn’t know.

“Are you hard?” Steve asks, voice trembling.

There’s a pause. He confesses. “I am. I’m sorry. It’s morning and you’re naked next to me.”

“No, I just… how do you do it? Live with it all the time? It’s horrible.”

“You get used to it. Like when you first go through puberty and you’re hard all the time. It was like that with the serum, too. It’s an adjustment period but then it evens out.”

Steve shakes his head. He doesn’t believe it. Isn’t willing to risk it. Bucky kisses his shoulder. “Does that mean you’re hard, Stevie?”

He’s glad he isn’t facing him.

“Steve. Turn over.”

“Fuck.” Steve turns over but he isn’t happy about it. There’s a glint in Bucky’s eye that makes him want to hit and/or fuck something. “I take it back. Never make me do anything,” Steve says, annoyed.

“Sorry, pal. Too late on that one.” Bucky licks his lips. He does this thing, but it’s like the bottom lip or the side of his mouth and it’s very distracting. And now it’s worse. Bucky smiles. He’s caught Steve looking.

“I’m not saying this to be an asshole. Saying it, makes me _sound_ like an asshole, but that’s not why I’m going to say it.”

“Just fucking say it,” Steve says, annoyed.

Bucky frowns at him. “Well, now it’s two things. First of all, I had no idea you wanted me so bad. Second of all, you are a total grump when you need to get off.”

“What? No. Screw you,” he manages, because the truth is Bucky is so right and if Bucky knows then how do they go on being friends? If Bucky realizes just how base Steve actually is, or even worse, experiences it, then what? Bucky won’t want him then. Steve is disgusted at the things he wants, how much he loves the pain and the tears, how much he fantasizes about Bucky and his cock and his come and…. And he needs the cage. If he’s in the cage then everything is under control.

He wants Bucky so badly there isn’t a damned thing he wouldn’t do if Bucky asked him. And his cock is so insistent now that he’s hard and throbbing. Now that he could actually come and feel the pleasure of orgasm. He isn’t just grumpy, he’s almost out of his mind with the need for Bucky to touch him. Once he’s locked up again things will be okay.

“You heard me. Yes. And yes.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Steve says, and he moves to get out of the bed. Horrible words and worse ideas are trying to pour out of his mouth. _I need you to make me come. I need your dick in my ass. I need you to fill me up with it. Tie me up and leave me here and I’ll do whatever you want. Don’t be nice. I’ll scream for you. Scream and beg and…._

Bucky presses on his chest and Steve goes back down. “Fuck. I hadn’t even put it all together, you know that? You got that serum and we just went to shit, didn’t we? All I knew how to do was take care of you. I’m not worth anything if I’m not taking care of Steve Rogers.”

“That’s not true,” Steve says, even as he turns the confession over in his mind. They did go to shit when he got the serum. Maybe he’d thought it was the war or even Peggy but it wasn’t. It was him different.

“You didn’t need me anymore, Steve. That’s what I thought. You didn’t need me to protect you or provide for you. You weren’t mine because you were finally strong enough to be yours. I think a part of me figured I only ever had you because you didn’t have another choice. After the serum, when everyone else wanted you and Peggy wanted you and I was broken by fucking Zola I think I just gave up. Because, I didn’t know you actually wanted me and wanted what we had. You had the chance to be perfect, why would you want to be tied up on our couch or crying into my shirt?”

Steve touches Bucky’s face. That’s the most heart breaking thing he’s ever heard. “It’s only ever been you for me. I was always where I wanted to be and I always knew you’d keep me safe and protect me. No matter how stupid I was, you always rescued me.”

“You mean whatever back alley you found yourself in?” Bucky asks, smiling like Steve getting himself beat up all the time was actually charming instead of massively messed up.

Steve can only nod. Embarrassed. He’s never been ‘right’. Never wanted normal things and Steve had figured that the stuff he wanted, the weird stuff they did and the power games they played was Steve dragging Bucky down that path. Weird shameful things Bucky did for Steve so he wouldn’t go out to the streets and find worse. 

“I figured once you were free of me for a while, got to Europe and spent time with people that weren’t…dysfunctional that you’d decided you didn’t want what we had anymore. That maybe my being strong and healthy was liberating for you. You could finally get rid of the albatross around your neck.”

“No, Stevie. I’ve never thought that and don’t think I’d _ever_ think that no matter what you or we did.”

Steve has nothing to say to that.

“When did you start this? Back then or when we got here?” Bucky asks, hand on his arm, an attempt to be soothing.

Steve sighs. “Back then. The suit they put me in right after the serum. They wanted no bulge in front. Scares the kids, you know?”

Bucky snorts. “I can imagine.”

“So they gave me a cup and it sort of worked, but I got nervous about it, worried. And I couldn’t control my dick, anyway. Before the serum, I didn’t get hard like this.”

Bucky nods, sympathetically. He knows firsthand just how often Steve was sick and likely couldn’t even get aroused. And it wasn’t just being aroused that changed.

Women touched him without asking once he got the serum. Everyone thinks they’re going to die so why not be bold and make a pass? They’d almost alway go straight for the groin, want to know if that had changed too. Just how big he was all over.

The more romantic women kissed him first, catching him by surprise and assuming that once they got started he’d get on board. It was enraging. Another thing that had been taken from him that he hadn’t even known he had to lose. Autonomy and control over his body.

And sometimes he’d get hard from their touch and he hadn’t wanted to, it was just a reaction and that was utterly devastating. Best to take that problem away. “You were gone and in some ways I felt like I needed you more than ever… just to protect me. Maybe the two came together. It was a replacement for you and a way I could protect myself. I liked knowing my dick was mine. It wasn’t theirs, and no one could touch it unless I said so.” Steve shrugs. It sounds weird. Sounds like he’s got a screw loose somewhere, but he knows it’s true.

It wouldn’t ever have occurred to him to lock himself away when they lived together. Not just because no one would have dared to lay a hand on him when Bucky was around, but because he belonged to Bucky. Heart, body and soul. They lived in each other’s pockets. He was Bucky’s.

Steve clears his throat. “And the serum made me want to come all the time which also pissed me off. It wasn’t fair. I do this thing, trying to save people and instead I’m thinking about sex and all the things I was never going to have and I just wanted to not deal with it. And you know, the cup hurt, sometimes. If it was too small or it got hit wrong and I…didn’t mind that as much as I should have.”

“Sounds like an understatement.” Steve turns his head and Bucky is right there. So close. “Can I kiss you?” Bucky asks.

“You can always kiss me,” Steve says. Bucky levers up on one elbow and looms over him, kisses Steve’s bottom lip and then his top, touching his tongue to the seam of Steve’s lips and then kissing him like he might break. It’s so sweet and accepting that Steve has to blink away more stupid tears. When Bucky pulls away from him, Steve decides to just finish telling him. Get it over with. “When I woke up from the ice it seemed even more fitting. I was never going to want anyone anyway since you were dead so what was the point? And that’s when I made the jump to an actual cage from the cup. I liked the idea of it being locked away. Sometimes I think about throwing away the keys. Just tossing them and seeing what happens.”

“I don’t want you to do that,” Bucky says, finger lightly stroking just under Steve’s lip.

“Then I won’t,” he says, and Bucky kisses him again. Bucky is quiet, touching him gently and kissing Steve on the lips and then his jaw. “You must have wanted other people besides me at some point?”

“How could I when you were there? Seriously. Think about how much time we spent together, how you…ran my life. We did everything together. Unless you were going on a date,” he says, trying to keep his voice from giving away how jealous he was. “What room was there for other people?” Steve says, shrugging.

“That makes it sound like I intentionally kept you isolated.”

“No, of course you didn’t! I’m not trying to say that at all. I’m just saying… no one else ever came close to you. I never liked girls and between being sick and work, there wasn’t anywhere else I wanted to be but with you.” 

Bucky gets him to turn his head, looking into his face like he’ll know the moment Steve lies to him. Hell, maybe he would. Steve blushes. He’s sick of being exposed and vulnerable. Suddenly, it’s all too much.He’s confessed that he’s only ever loved Bucky in his entire life and his dick is still hard and he’s on the verge of begging Bucky to jerk him off so it’s time to do a little self-preservation.

“Where is it?” he asks.

“It’s in the bathroom on the counter.” Steve gets out of bed, naked, so hard he feels like he has to press his hand to the shaft and head to keep them still, feels like he should waddle because his balls are so big. He gets to the bathroom and he can’t even piss.

He turns on the shower and picks up the cage. It’s sitting on a little spread out washcloth. Bucky cleaned it at some point. He feels nauseous about Bucky knowing him so intimately. He can’t lose him. And this will drive him away. Bucky says it’s fine, but for how long?

It’s so overwhelming, this is such a disaster that his dick is mercifully wilting a little. Only a little. It’s monstrous compared to his sleek cage. He aches to be in it again. He squeezes himself like he can force the blood out of his cock and back into his body where it belongs, but that never works and it just makes his ass clench and his hips shove forward in a needy, uncontrolled thrust.

There is no hope for it. He’ll have to jerk off. He opens Bucky’s drawers looking for anything helpful. Of course not. His eyes catch on the wash line. Bucky’s from the damned forties. He’s gotta hang up laundry sometimes, right? He opens the towel cabinet and finds a small basket of clothespins.

The relief is overwhelming. He takes six for good measure and gets into the shower. He washes his face and his chest, his underarms and his legs, leaving the complicated bits for last.

His nipples are already hard points, so he puts a clothespin on one and shudders through the hot pain of adjustment. He gets the other one on, goes back to the first and opens the mouth of the clip so blood rushes back into the area. The clamp this time is worse. He goes back and forth several times, until it’s all he can think about, totally distracting, even more upsetting than the monstrous thing between his legs.

He soaps his balls. He wants to be gentle. So gentle, because he’s sensitive still from Bucky’s hard grip last night. Just thinking about it makes his traitorous cock spurt happily. He slaps the thing, holding it down and out from his body by the base, spanking the head hard and having to sink down into the shower to get his breath back. He fumbles the clips along the skin of his balls. Two, no, _three_.

He should have gotten more clips.

He takes the two from his nipples and pinches them roughly, cock dripping now, the need to grip and yank himself to orgasm is maddening. He is owned by this feeling. He’d let people die if he was in the world and felt like this. There’d be nothing more important than his dick and the need to come.

That’s his fear. When he feels like this he knows it’s true. He can imagine being on a mission with Bucky, just like this, hard and needy and he’d beg to get off, probably get them both killed in his quest to satisfy this lust.

He’s disgusting and depraved. He’s panting as he squeezes his nipples, flicks the clips on his sac. He gets one onto the skin at the base of his shaft, between his balls, clamps it and his hips jerk again. He puts the other one on the head of his cock. Or at least tries to. It’s fucking impossible and frustrating because he’s so big.

He’s thinking about what to do next but he’s still holding his cock at the base, legs spread and his eyes close in pleasure, orgasm building inside him. It’s so good, he needs this so bad. He’s going to paint this shower with come and he’s going to go empty and soft after. He’ll be small and delicate like he used to be. This problem will be locked away.

His dick is like a pus filled boil and it’s going to be drained, leaving him healthy and ready to be himself again, not this craven, desperate animal.

He pinches his nipples again and then slaps his cock, smacks the clips one after the other off of his balls, and buries his face in his arm so he doesn’t get noisy.

God, he’s going to come. Not from pleasant strokes and gentle touches but from the ache and the pain. He lets that throb through him, urges it to morph into something else.

So fucking good, he thinks, hand sliding up his shaft in a tight grip. He forces his hand open with a groan of extreme frustration just as he slides over the edge. Hands free and ruin it, he reminds himself. That’s what he wants. His body betrays him and he _doesn’t_ do that.

His hand goes back, jerks desperately, feeling it, desperate to milk those last pulses of pleasure. He’s loose and he’s weak and this is why he shouldn’t be. He knew what he wanted to happen and he wasn’t strong enough to go through with it.

He breathes shakily. He’s missed the wave of the orgasm, gets little bits and shocks, the dregs, manages to make a spurt or two pump out instead of the heavy dribble of a ruined orgasm, which is what he sometimes allows himself. But only if he’s really frustrated and achingly full.

And, it doesn’t even have time to register as feeling good before it’s over. What a fucking waste. What’s the god damned point?

He hates this. He cleans his ass, his hole, never letting himself linger there because he fucking loves that and that is most certainly a thing he shouldn’t crave.

He makes the shower cold. Ice cold and just endures it, eyes closed, cataloguing the sensations as they move through him. The sound of water hitting the tiles, not like water pouring into the plane, and he can breathe, he reminds himself, suddenly taking large lungfuls of air. He’s okay.

He turns the water off. Has to get out. Memories of the crash are close today and he’s not sure why. Because he’s loose and everything is out of control, he thinks, wishing it wasn’t this bad to be out of the cage. He wants to be protected and have the trauma held back by Bucky’s strong arms and the force of his will just like Bucky had held back all the death and disaster that had come for him when he was weak.

If he walked out of here and went back into that bedroom, climbed into bed and asked Bucky to keep him safe, to just hold him, Bucky would. He’d hold Steve’s cock and put an arm around him. Maybe he’d even put his cock into Steve and pin him that way too, just anchoring him to the earth.

That’s what he wants. And maybe Bucky would bite him, keep him there with his teeth and Bucky could dig his nails in and it’d be another point where he’d be held and contained. And perhaps Bucky could come in him and on him, like his come would keep him here too. He’s touching himself again, just thinking about it, desperate to walk back into that bedroom and say all of these awful things, demand them. _Fuck me and come in me and make me feel it. Hurt me and make me beg you_.

He stops touching himself. He’s so reckless and pathetically desperate. If he was normal then he’d leave here and go back into the bedroom and Bucky would jerk him off or blow him and maybe he’d return the favor and then they’d go to brunch like normal people who have uncomplicated vanilla sex.

It’s good enough for everyone else. Why can’t he do that right? Depression is there, filling him up on all sides like water in the Valkyrie. Last night was a mistake. A fluke. Bucky urging him to fuck the toy, making it embarrassing and some complicated test of his devotion, giving Steve a chance to meet the challenge and succeed. That had been glorious. Steve knew it was a one off. That hadn’t been about a power play or a punishment or something like that, it’d been Bucky trying to give Steve a chance to see what normal looked like. Good old heterosexual sex but adjusted for his depravities.

And he told Bucky he was the only person he’s ever wanted.

The good news is that all of that is so awful he’s soft now. He can cram himself back into the cage. Usually, he uses a bit of lube to help him slide in. He’s too big for this model, but that’s part of the appeal. He likes the look of the smaller cage, the pain it makes him feel. He forces the flesh in, uses a bit of water as he’s just damp enough to stick to the metal. It has to happen quickly or his body will get confused and start getting hard.

It’s uncomfortable. Uncomfortable barely registers in his brain. There’s no lock. Where is the lock? He opens the door to the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist, places his hand on the cage over it to keep it in place. The worst of both worlds, really.

“Where’s the lock?” he demands, voice raised a little because he’s annoyed.

He wants this to be over. He wants to go home and be alone, put himself back together. Even if they had a heart to heart and managed to work things out between them a little, it’s still not possible to be normal. He needs to be content with that. He’s got to go home and let all this fade a bit so he can find contentment with the cage and the restrictions and being… isolated for lack of a better word.

He’s so close to leaving and now there’s this delay, and he has to think about it for longer, all that he can’t have and won’t have and can’t say, but of course, Bucky isn’t making it easy because he’s kept the fucking lock.

Bucky comes out of the bedroom. He takes his sweet fucking time, too. He leans against the wall. His hair is down, he’s still in his boxers. He’s half hard and there’s… there’s marks on the boxers. Lube from Steve, maybe, and that might be a smear of his come on the front. Steve had been pressed against him, after all.

Steve’s gaze goes back, drawn helplessly to the signs of last night and it’s so fucking arousing and distracting and filthy. He has to get the lock on immediately. His dick is already trying to get hard, lurid ideas are running through his mind. 

“Give me the lock and the key,” Steve says, because he’s made _that_ mistake before. Snapped the lock on and couldn’t find the key and had to cut it off. He always makes sure he’s got both before he locks up.

Bucky looks down at Steve’s chest. His red, sore nipples. He doesn’t say anything. He looks at the towel Steve is holding so primly. Steve thrusts out his hand, palm open for him to give him the lock and the key.

“Do you remember that summer—“

“I don’t have time for a fucking ‘do you remember when.’ Undoubtedly, I _do_ remember. I remember _everything_. So, give me the lock and the key and then we can do the memory lane bullshit.”

Bucky doesn’t even move. He’s such a jerk. Steve’s cock is straining at the cage as he tries to get hard, aroused by Bucky being an ass because Steve is stupid. “So, anyway, remember that summer where you could only take a piss when I said you could?”

He’s horrified. Mortified. He lets his hand fall. Gives up. “What do you want?”


	8. Chapter 8

“Can I put it on you?” he asks, voice low and almost dangerous. Covetous. It’s his ‘I control you and now you’re gonna do this’ voice. A lot of his memories feature that voice. He usually comes thinking about that voice. He’ll wake up from a wet dream and hear it echoing in his mind.

But, Bucky holds the lock out, offering. Steve can take it and say no. “I won’t be an ass about it, but I’d like to….secure you.” 

“The lock has to go on quick or it won’t…lock. Won’t fit, I mean.”

“I’ll be quick. Promise.”

Steve nods, drops his hand. He looks down, ashamed and wanting. Bucky is going to get him_ secure_. That was the word he used. Like protection.

Or like ownership. As if Steve’ cock belongs to Bucky so he gets to lock it and keep it to himself. Steve licks his lips. He touches his chest absently. Control me, have me, keep the keys. Oh god, what if Bucky kept the keys?

Bucky moves closer and somehow Steve is against the bathroom counter. It’s as though he lost a bit of time or something. Bucky’s hands are over his own, demanding he let go of the towel.

The metal hand lifts his and the towel opens, trapped against the counter, revealing Steve’s other hand that’s been holding the cage closed. Bucky brushes his fingers over the back of Steve’s hand and drops down to his knees. He looks up at Steve. “I’ve got you. I’ll take care of it now,” he says. Steve bites the inside of his cheek and stares at the linen closet, tries to not think about how unintentionally and unknowingly romantic Bucky’s words are to him.

It’s not something he can explain or that Bucky would understand. He doesn’t really understand the conflict in himself: the desire to give all control to Bucky and trust him with his cock and the need to keep himself locked away and untouchable.

He’s like god damned Rapunzel and he wants Bucky to let down his cock or something. The image amuses and disturbs him. Is he trapped in a tower of his own making? Is Bucky trying to rescue him? How can someone be rescued if they choose to be in a tower voluntarily?

Bucky is all business and puts the lock on. It clicks shut before he’s really processed the fact that Bucky is touching his cock.

“There. Better, baby?” Bucky asks, staring at Steve’s cock all locked away, fingers lightly touching the metal, petting him like he’s precious. 

Steve shifts, body desperate to get hard again. There’s that familiar pain of frustrated arousal and he’s grown so used to that, enjoys it in a fucked up way that the combination of that discomfort and the hand on him feels like foreplay or something.

He takes a breath, the first easy breath he’s had in awhile. He can breathe now that he’s locked up safe and pleasure is a lot more work. Now he won’t beg for Bucky’s cock or his touch.

Bucky’s fingers move to his balls, cupping them. Steve’s balls are getting hard and tight. “I feel it, feel you trying,” Bucky says, looking at Steve’s cock like it’s weirdly impressive.“Hurts?” 

“Yeah.”

Bucky raises his hand, lifting the whole mass of him, taking all the weight in his palm. Steve’s breath is heaving in and out of him as he stands there and accepts it all.

“Bucky,” he breathes, desperate.

“Tell me what you want.”

He doesn’t know. He can’t say. Bucky takes his hand away and the heavy cage drops down, tugging on his balls and making him grunt in pain. His eyes close as the intense throbbing reaches its peak. The soft press of lips against his take a moment to register.

Bucky kissing him. “Yes, please,” he whispers against Bucky’s lips and wraps his arms around him, holding him close. He whimpers into the kiss, wanting more and more, feeling safe and yet needy.

“Fuck, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs and it feels like maybe he has more to say but he doesn’t. He lifts Steve again, so gentle, holding him protectively, kissing Steve until he’s languid and trusting and then takes his hand away, Steve’s weighted cock and balls dropping again. He gasps into Bucky’s mouth, feeling shameless with it, wanting him to do it again and again, wanting it enough that he doesn’t try to limit Bucky seeing just how much he loves it.

“Everything you do makes me so damned hard,” Bucky says, like it’s a problem. “I’ll take it, Stevie. Any fucking scrap you want to give me, I want it.” He kisses Steve’s neck and sucks a bruise into his skin, hand on Steve’s balls, stroking gently on the thin skin, lifting it all up again, drawing the suspense out.

Steve knows it’s going to happen and he keeps his eyes closed, lips parted so Bucky can kiss him and he can make a sound when it hurts. “Please,” he whispers, and Bucky bites Steve’s bottom lip and then he lets Steve’s cock drop again and something in Steve gives way, just evaporates so he feels like he’s floating and drifting. His head goes down to Bucky’s neck and he rests there, breathing and whimpering as it goes on and on. Bucky is steady and perfect. He tells Steve how lovely he is, how good and perfect. His hand roams Steve’s back while his other one continues to play with Steve’s cock, giving him pleasure and pain like there’snowhere else he’d rather be and like this is just as good for him as it is for Steve.

His breath begins to hitch with each drop and he spreads his legs a little, inviting Bucky’s touch. Bucky strokes his balls again, just light touches over the skin and along his perineum, soothing him after all the building pain of repetition.

“Would you like it if I touched you back here?” Bucky asks him, a finger close to his hole but not touching him. It’s asked quietly, like it’s a secret just for the two of them and somehow that makes it okay to nod, asking for something beyond taboo.

Bucky touches him there, the pad of his finger grazing over Steve’s hole. He’s so in tune with Bucky and his own body that he can hear Bucky breathing, almost feel his heart beating as Steve’s head stays heavy on his shoulder and neck. He rubs his nose against Bucky’s skin, inhaling the scent of him.

He smells of sweat and sleep and sex and just himself, strong and virile and he could cry with how much he loves it and loves him, how close he came to never having him like this. The chain of events that led him to having Bucky with him after all this time.

“I need you to fuck me,” Steve whispers, still outside himself and dreamy enough to say it. 

“Sweetheart,” Steve hears, the barest hint of sound, as if Bucky couldn’t get the word out. Bucky’s finger is pressing gently along the rim, like he’s memorizing every bit of skin and texture, as if even that part of Steve deserves gentle affection. His finger lifts away and then is back and there’s a hint of slip and slickness against his hole. It happens again and again, smoothing over him, gently beginning to push into him, just the tip of one finger and he opens his eyes and looks down, sees Bucky touching the tip of the cage softly, finger coming away slick and sticky as he goes back to Steve’s hole.

He’s leaking, copiously dripping out of the cage and Bucky doesn’t just know, he’s touching it and using it to open Steve up and that’s just so overwhelming and intimate that he hides away again, trying to pretend it isn’t happening.

“Have you gone shy on me, babydoll?” Bucky’s hand splays on Steve’s back, protective and soothing.

“It scares me how much I want it. I can’t ask you again,” Steve confesses.

“You don’t have to ask me again. I’ve got it. We need more lube. Can I take you back to bed?”

Bucky tries to move and Steve holds him still. He can’t let him out of his arms yet, can’t face him, because once he does he’s going to go silent and Steve might just fuck this up and get nothing because he wants it so badly that it almost has to go wrong. “I…I do want it,” Steve says.

“We don’t have to,” Bucky offers, and Steve realizes it sounds like he doesn’t want it. _Oh hell_, Steve thinks, somehow already talking Bucky out of it and screwing it up.

“Last night you didn’t… you could have done it on me or…my mouth or… _there. _Promise me you will this time. Something.” He isn’t even making sense. And Bucky is just standing there like a fucking statue trying to work out what Steve means, and he won’t, because Steve can’t even say the word _come_ let alone ask to be marked up with it.

He’s being ridiculous. But, Bucky denied him yesterday, chose the fleshlight over him and if something like that happens again, just a casual denial or misunderstanding, even a _joke, _if he doesn’t get that from Bucky he will fall apart.

It’s all linked in to each other; the cage, and his denial, and the things he desperately wants but is terrified of being _known_ for. He’s protected but he’s also impenetrable.

“Jesus. I’m sorry, Stevie. I hadn’t even thought about it. I just figured—“

“No! I know. It’s so stupid. D-dirty,” he says, and Bucky grabs him close, hearing that hint of a stutter and instantly trying to protect Steve from the world like he used to. Steve didn’t stutter a lot before the serum, the situation had to be just scary enough, totally overwhelming. It had hardly ever happened. He can feel Bucky thinking, trying to work out why this is happening now. What about this has Steve so upset.

“It isn’t dirty,” Bucky finally says, voice firm and too fucking loud. “Who are you, Father Macintosh?” Steve almost shushes him.Because this is the sort of thing that needs to be said in a whisper, in the dark and behind a locked door. If it has to be said at all. He’d never have even tried to say it if it hadn’t been for Bucky pumping his seed into that fleshlight while Steve stood there, useless and unwanted. If he hadn’t felt like his heart was breaking. Because it is wrong, it is dirty, and Steve hates that he wants it.

“No condom then?” Bucky finally asks.

“We have the serum,” Steve says. They can’t get diseases and no one is getting pregnant so can’t they do it without? _Bareback_. Even that has almost magical connotations for Steve. It just sounds hot. It’s sexy to say and hear, and when he sees it written out in books or the internet he stares at the letters, feels empty and alone inside. Bareback makes him think of some animalistic encounter where he’ll be mounted and soaked full of come. He’ll be naked and bred.

“I’ve never done it bare,” Bucky says, interrupting Steve’s fantasy. He’s waiting for Steve to say something.

“I don’t know, just something,” he mumbles.

“I’m not saying no. I guess it just hadn’t occurred to me that you’d take it personally. I was trying to avoid making a mess on the floor. I’m just… I wanna understand.”

“I was standing there,” Steve says, voice shaking. Why is it shaking? Bucky frowns. Not at him but like he’s trying to remember the moment. As if he forgot the reason Steve sounds so betrayed.

Steve swallows hard. “You asked me if I wanted to see you,” _come_. _It’s four letters_, Steve tells himself. _Just say it._ He tries. It doesn’t happen.“…in the toy, and I said no, and then you did, anyway.”

Bucky shakes his head and he looks at Steve, scrutinizing the blush on his cheeks and the firm line of his mouth. Steve’s chin jerks up, defensive and automatic. He wraps his hands around Bucky’s wrists, wanting him to stop staring at him, puzzling it out, like he’s reading Steve’s mind and working out how fucked up he is. He’s like one of those late night tv things: ‘But wait, there’s more! Act now and we can add deep seated religious shame to the masochism and slave-like desires of Steve Rogers!

“Tell me you want my come and you can have it.”

“_Don’t_,” Steve says, feeling trapped and weak all the sudden.

“I’m thinking your ma did you a real disservice making you go to church all those days.”

“Not ma,” he says, voice deadly. He will endure this conversation but his mother gets left out of it.

Bucky opens his mouth, closes it again. “Wasn’t trying to bring her into it. Although she loved you more than anything so I don’t think she’d like how upset this is making you. You know how many people we’ve fucking killed? Sex is good. If there is a hell and we’re going, it isn’t going to be because you wanted me to mark you up with my come.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, not wanting to dwell on those words. “I always knew I was gonna burn for how I felt about you. And I…confessed, once, when it looked like I wasn’t gonna make it and ma got the priest in. The evils of sodomy and temptations of the flesh were something I heard about a lot after that.”

“You know that’s bullshit, right?”

Steve swallows hard. “I know it. My brain knows it. But I don’t _feel_ it.”

“I must have fucked up badly yesterday then. I’m sorry, Stevie. What’s worse than menthol vaseline?”

“What? No!”

Bucky winces. “We did a lot of stuff that… it shouldn’t have been like that,” he says. “I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea. Or right. I’m sorry.”

And Steve can just tell that Bucky is changing his mind about everything he might want to do to Steve. It’s going to be sweet kisses and gentle touches and everything he wants is going to be gone forever because he’ll probably never be able to ask for any of it. And now Bucky won’t cajole him into depraved things because he’ll feel guilty.

Steve laughs. He doesn’t mean to. It’s mostly hysteria. “This is so fucking typical of my life. I think I’m finally getting something and it’s all different or fucked up then it was supposed to be. I want….” He takes a deep breath in and the lets it out, “_More_ of yesterday. Yeah, I’m ashamed and it’s wrong but I need you to give it to me. Make me. Please. Just force me.”

“You need a fucking safe word is what you need,” Bucky says, shaking his head.

“Okay. Brooklyn,” Steve says, and now Bucky laughs. “That was a fast answer. You’ve thought about this, huh?”

Steve doesn’t speak. He can’t. He doesn’t know how he said _that_. It’s humiliating and embarrassing and he shifts on his feet again because his cock is trying to get hard and it hurts again. 

“Here, sweetheart. You don’t have to say a lot. But, I need you to say yes to me. When you want something. If you can say yes then I can give you options, so many options for things I want to do to you.”

Steve nods. “Like what?” he whispers.

“I need a shower or I’d tell you to get on your knees,” Bucky says. “After I have a shower, do you want to suck my cock, Steve? I’ll come on your face and in your mouth. Come all over that cage too if you want.” Steve’s hands instinctively clench on Bucky’s wrists as he keeps himself from dropping to the ground and/or begging to suck his cock. Dirty doesn’t make it less appealing. His mouth actually waters and he swallows.

Bucky smirks and then it’s gone. He drops his gaze to Steve’s mouth, moves his hand and Steve lets go of his wrists. He presses a finger to Steve’s lip and presses down until Steve lets his mouth open slightly.

“So good,” Bucky murmurs and he leans in, pressing his lips and tongue into Steve’s mouth, around the finger, sliding over it so Steve has to stay there, passive while his mouth is invaded. Bucky pulls back, eyes half-lidded in arousal. “My finger tastes like your come.”

Steve huffs out a breath, suddenly panting with how badly he wants come in his mouth. His tongue swipes out, tasting Bucky’s finger. Even if it’s his own, he fucking wants it. He swallows. He doesn’t know if it’s there. Bitter. Salt. That’s nothing. “I want your mouth to taste like my come,” Bucky says.

Steve grabs Bucky’s underwear in his hand, stares at Bucky’s collarbone and blushes. “Yeah, you better get down there, Steve.”

Steve drops down to the ground, hands fumbling at Bucky’s underwear, pulling it down, mouth already open as he gets it into his mouth and sucks. Pre-come along the head and Steve sucks it in and swallows instantly, moaning around it. And there’s last night on him too, lube and come and he sucks and swallows that off but it isn’t enough.There’s a day and a night of Bucky as well as his arousal and all he can do is breathe him in and taste him, desperate and urgent.

“Jesus, Stevie,” Bucky says, sounding awed. His hands clench hard in Steve’s hair. So hard tears come to his eyes, and Steve cries out and reaches down to his own cock, groans in disappointment that he can’t jerk himself off and goes down to his balls instead.

“I’ll come down your throat. And then I’ll take you to bed and I’ll come in your ass. I’ll show you dirty, baby.” He’s ashamed at how much he wants it. How grateful he’d be for Bucky to do that. Bucky grabs his hair and pulls him off, forces eye contact. “Do you want that?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s what you’re going to get,” Bucky says, and he feeds his cock to Steve, pets his hair and moans. “Perfect. Your mouth feels so good.”

_Fuck my throat._ He won’t ask. Well, he might if he could get the words out because he’s on fire for it. But, Bucky doesn’t get rough with him at all. Doesn’t make him cry or gag. He lets Steve set the pace and just enjoys it, head thrown back, cock twitching and then looking down at Steve and tracing his lips.

“I’m about to come, baby. You’ve fucking earned it. I’m going to come on your tongue. Just on the inside of your mouth so you can swallow it all and enjoy it.” He squeezes Bucky’s thigh gratefully and waits, sucks harder. Bucky grunts and his cock swells. The first spurt is shocking, thick and heavy and it sits on his tongue and he swallows once and then again. Bucky is jerking his cock, riding out the little aftershocks, “Close your eyes,” He gasps and he pulls out of Steve’s mouth and stripes Steve’s nose and even his eyelashes and eyebrow. He wipes his cock on Steve’s cheek and it’s just so much.

He’s shaking, grateful to be on the ground so he doesn’t collapse because god he feels lightheaded now. So good. So fucking good. He licks his lips, swallows again, and can’t open his eyes because of the come.

Bucky drops down beside him. Steve hears him, feels the displacement of air and the fact that he can’t see him, for some reason makes him whimper as Bucky closes the distance between them. Bucky mouths at his neck, sucking the skin and nipping him until Steve grabs his arm and holds on.

“There you are,” Bucky murmurs and he puts two hands on Steve’s nipples, brushing his thumbs over them and then pinching. They’re still sore and he twitches with each touch. Bucky lifts his hands, hovers them over Steve’s skin and takes turns pinching his nipples, startling him with each touch, making a game of it at Steve’s expense.

Steve’s breathing gets quicker and he puts a hand down on the cage, holding it gently in his hand. “Are you protecting it from me?” Bucky asks, the idea giving him a weird sense of deja-vu.

“No.”

“What then?”

“I wish it wasn’t so distracting. And I wasn’t sure how much I was making a mess,” he says, red-faced and embarrassed.

“And? Are you making a mess on my floor, Steve?”

Steve doesn’t say a word but his cheeks get even more flushed. Bucky slips his hand under Steve’s, touching the bottom of the cage which is all cool and wet from Steve’s leaked come. “You liked blowing me? Do I need to keepyou down there all the time? I need to come a lot, Steve. You want me to start coming in your mouth everyday? First thing in the morning and last thing at night? Or maybe right after work?”

“If that’s what you want,” he agrees, quickly. Bucky puts his wet fingers to Steve mouth and he cleans them with a moan. Bucky gets the come off his eye lashes but leaves the rest.

“I made a mess of you,” he whispers. Bucky gets to his feet and Steve blinks his eyes open. He looks at Bucky’s cock, trying to decide if he’s brave enough to lean forward, mouth open and just blow him again.Bucky won’t stop him. “You keep looking at me like that and you’re going to get another load of come in your mouth, sweetheart.”

Steve glances at him, eyes hot as he silently begs.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tags updated

Bucky is staring at Steve’s mouth, thumb tracing along the bottom lip. “Do you want it?” he asks, after a long moment. Steve shifts his attention to Bucky’s cock, half hard in front of him. Steve doesn’t say yes but he opens his mouth a little more, tongue swiping his thumb.

“Your face is a mess,” Bucky says, amused. He wipes at the come and feeds it to Steve. No hesitation or asking, just expects Steve to take it. Which, he does, of course. He isn’t sure if one comment goes with the other and he can’t tell from Bucky’s expression if he’s going to get to blow Bucky again or not. 

He can have Bucky’s cock in his mouth. It’s only his own reticence that’s keeping it from happening. Well, that’s most of the reason. There’s also a part of him that likes the waiting and the hoping and not knowing. Not getting. He pauses over that last bit. Does he like _not_ getting Bucky’s cock?

Hell fucking no. If there’s to be ‘denial ‘it needs to be Steve not getting an orgasm. But, it shouldn’t be denial like Steve doesn’t get the come because the fleshlight does, or Steve doesn’t get a dick in his ass because Bucky is punishing him. That’s not a denial he can stand. And how does he convey that when he can’t articulate anything aloud and when he’s still working it out himself?

Every moment of this change in their relationship brings a new visceral reaction of good or bad, and he’s ill equipped to navigate all of this. Bucky’s thumb is back at Steve’s mouth, swiping more come onto his tongue and he takes it and swallows obediently then focuses his gaze on Bucky. “I’ll try, you know? To do it right. I’m worried I won’t,” Bucky says.

Steve stands up, cups Bucky’s face in his hand. “Isn’t that all there is? I don’t expect you to get it right all the time. I’m just happy you’re gonna try.”

“Good faith effort?” His smile isn’t all that convincing.

“Yeah.”

Bucky nods. A long moment passes. “I want to come in your mouth again.”

He blushes and drops back to the ground. Hopefully, his enthusiastic action says enough. Bucky walks away from him and into the shower, gets the water on and waits. “Come here.”

“Crawl?”

Bucky seems surprised and then carefully blank. “Yeah. Do that,” he orders. Steve obeys, mortified and aroused as he gets closer, as he realizes that Bucky’s expression meant it never would have occurred to him to make Steve do that. He hates that it was his own suggestion, that he’s given away what a pervert he is, freely, with no pestering or anything. He’d just volunteered the information.

Bucky is looking at him, at the scowl on Steve’s face. “Hey. I like you down there, like this.”

The water warms up and Bucky moves under the spray. He points to the space at his feet and Steve goes there, blinking quickly as drops of water try to hit him in the eyes. “Closer and then keep your eyes shut. There’s nothing to see,” Bucky says.

Steve disagrees. Bucky’s body, his face, his cock. There’s lots of see. But he can’t say that so the comment just has to stay between them. Steve opens his mouth and takes Bucky’s cock into his mouth, sucking at it gently, running his tongue along the head. Bucky moans appreciatively and places his hand flat on Steve’s head, keeping him still.

“Do you want to do all the work or do you want me to fuck your throat?”

He doesn’t have an answer.

Bucky sighs. “Maybe you don’t care either way. Maybe you just want my cock or to give me pleasure. Maybe you find it degrading and you like that. Maybe you just want…I don’t even know. How do I know if you don’t tell me, Stevie?”

Bucky touches his face. He sighs. “You know what? I want you to suck my cock like your life depends upon it. Like you’re god damned sheherazade and I’m your sheikh, but instead of stories it’s a blow job. Every night, you get called in to give me a blow job and the moment it isn’t good I’m going to have you put to death. How’s that, Stevie?”

Steve nods.

“The trouble is the shiekh is lazy and entitled. Stuff has always been done for him, you know? He’s used to people wanting him and doing a good job for him. _Desperate_ to do a good job. That’s not how you get to stay alive and keep the king’s favor though, is it?”

Apparently Bucky is going to wait him out. The bastard. “No, I guess it wouldn’t be,” Steve finally says, resting his forehead on Bucky’s hip. He turns his head, kisses the shaft gently and buries his head again.

“You want to keep the king’s interest, you’ve gotta give him something he’s never seen before. Someone who isn’t in love with his power or even his person but his _cock_. That cock is everything.” He puts a hand in Steve’s hair, tips his head back. “Isn’t it, Stevie?”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“Look at me. Can you do that? Pretend that? For me?”

He swallows hard, blinks. “I don’t know.” He looks up at Bucky, imploring him. Bucky rolls his eyes.

“I think you can. You always had such a gift for any game I wanted to play. You just knew. It was effortless. This is the same damned thing.” Bucky drops down to his knees, looks straight into Steve’s eyes. “Imagine we’re still in Brooklyn, then. It’s Saturday night and I’ve had a long, fucking week. I’m gonna go out if you can’t convince me to stay home. Don’t you want me to stay home?”

“Always.”

“Always,” Bucky repeats, kissing Steve hard and then pulling back. “Then you have to give me what I want. Make it worth my while, don’t you? Convince me, Stevie. Or else you’re not going to get what you want, either.”

His stomach flips unpleasantly.

“You don’t have to meet me halfway, Steve. But, you’ve gotta give me something.” His voice is determined. Bucky’s willing to be mean about it. He stands up.

“Maybe…maybe it isn’t even the cock, but….” He strokes Bucky’s balls softly, and dares a glance up at him, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. A visual cue.

A smile quirks the corner of Bucky’s mouth. His cock twitches in interest. “You’re a genius, Steve. That’s why he’s so captivated, isn’t it? She doesn’t just want his dick, she wants his come. She’s fucking starved for it. She’ll go mad without it.”

Steve is blushing. Blushing and ashamed and he puts a hand down to support his aching genitals.

“Didn’t she try to escape?” Steve offers.

“He’d be very angry if she did,” Bucky says, carefully. His gaze is narrowed like he isn’t quite sure he understands where Steve is going with this. 

“He’d be rough with her,” Steve whispers. “Now that he’s got her back. After what she’s put him through.”

Bucky is smiling at him which is probably in his top three of things he wants in all the world. “He wouldn’t believe that she wants it, his faith is shaken. Her life is on the line. Unless she can convince him. Best thing she’s ever had.”

“He’d punish her for daring to leave.”

“How does he do that?” Bucky asks, hand hard on Steve’s jaw as he keeps him immobile. The hand is Bucky’s way of saying Steve is going to answer or nothing happens.

“Choke her?” Steve says. “Gag her, maybe?”

Bucky makes a sound in his throat. Considering. “He does love her, though. Stevie, he loves her so much that even if he’s angry with her he doesn’t really want to hurt her.”

Steve swallows. He can’t speak. He shakes his head. It doesn’t have to be real choking. He isn’t saying it right. Well, he isn’t saying it at all and that’s the fucking problem. He doesn’t know how to get to what he wants. His breath comes out shaky and he presses into Bucky’s hand, imploring him.

“Close your eyes,” Bucky orders. He waits until Steve obeys. “He doesn’t want to hurt her,” he repeats. “It’s not you, Steve. We’re just making up a story.” He laughs, miserable. So stupid that all this time later and they still use this fiction to get what they want from each other. They’re not kids. But, Bucky’s trying to make it easy for Steve. He’s grateful. He knows how to play the game.

“Yeah. He doesn’t, though. That’s her…gift. That’s how she’s stayed alive. She likes all the things she should hate. He’d… her mouth. Hard.”

“You’ll say Brooklyn?” Bucky asks, after a long moment..

Steve nods. Bucky’s hand is tentative in his hair. Then it gets tight and Steve closes his eyes and tilts his head, lets Bucky see on his face how good that is for him, that he said hard and he meant it. Bucky is about to guide Steve’s head to his cock but Steve beats him to it, slurps the cock into his mouth and sucks sloppy and eager. A sudden burst of bravery and desperation spurring him on.

“Fucking hell, princess. I’ve missed that mouth. No one does it like you do,” Bucky says, and he lets his hips shove forward. It catches Steve by surprise and he grabs onto Bucky’s hips as his cock goes deep, gaggingly deep and Steve does his best not to react badly. Steve gasps, and coughs when Bucky pulls out. Steve sucks him back in and moans, feels Bucky’s cock twitch at the sound. Princess. Steve turns it over in his mind, some small part of him letting the word rattle into his throat just like Bucky’s giant cock is doing. Is princess good?

“You’re mine, aren’t you?” Bucky asks, stroking Steve’s cheek, shoving his cock there so he can feel it through his mouth.

Steve tries to agree but Bucky groans and thrusts rapidly, building up a rhythm, clearly focused on coming quickly. As a super soldier it’s not like it matters all that much. He has almost zero refractory period, especially when it’s just one or two orgasms. “One more. And then I’ll be okay to fuck you proper and not embarrass myself. Come on, sweetheart. Moan for me. Don’t be shy. I thought you missed me?”

Steve feels himself getting more embarrassed and he touches his balls, moaning as he sucks hard on Bucky’s cock.

“Just like that. Look at you, touching yourself for me. You know that gets me hot, don’t you?” Bucky gasps, and Steve shakes with it. His jaw is beginning to ache, his cock is throbbing and even the light touch to his balls is now too much. He moves his hand to the shaft of Bucky’s cock, grips tight and tries to jerk him off as best he can while taking as much length into his mouth as possible.

“Don’t swallow. You hear me? Don’t spill a fucking drop. Don’t swallow. Keep it all in your mouth until I tell you to. Isn’t this what you wanted?”

Steve moans and swallows while he can, lets himself get choked and gagged and that’s _no_t good. No one can like that, he thinks, feeling like he’s been lied to. Who’d want their face fucked when it’s like that?It happens again and then again and tears are streaming down his face and he’s just about beside himself. Each time he tries to prepare, to be ready and anticipate. Each time is a little deeper and Bucky moans a little more and Steve has to work a little harder.

He’s got to come. Steve can’t keep this up. He fells like he’s being ripped apart, totally unmoored. He grabs onto Bucky’s ass, then his hips, trying to find some anchor. There’s nothing he can do to protect himself. He’s at Bucky’s mercy. Vulnerable and on his knees, degraded. Spit trails down his chin, tears drip off his face and the fucking goes on.

Bucky is everything. Oh. Suddenly, he gets it. A moment of clarity and peace as he times it right and doesn’t gag and Bucky groans, pleased and he went deeper then ever, deeper than anyone should ever go and Bucky had liked it. Wants Steve to do that again and give that to him. He gags and it’s suddenly okay, it’s suddenly part of the act of worshipping Bucky’s cock and being good for him.

“Fuck. Keep it all,” Bucky groans, and then he’s coming in Steve’s mouth, and Steve breathes through his nose. It’s a reward, a sign of how much Bucky wants him and it makes him so aroused he can’t hardly stand it. His mouth fills with come. It’s almost too much. It’s awkward. He’s got that strange feeling again like he just needs to be _taken_. He needs weight on his body and to be fucked wide open and to have Bucky use him. His hand shakes as he puts it on Bucky’s side. Bucky grabs his hand, laces their fingers together and looks down at him as he catches his breath.

Bucky’s breath evens out. He pulls his cock out of Steve’s mouth, slowly, watching to make sure he doesn’t spill. “Stay there. Hold my thigh and don’t swallow.”

Bucky gets shampoo and Steve shifts in the shower, hard tiles on his knees and rests his head on the outside of Bucky’s thigh where he’s been told to wait.

“Spread your legs,” Bucky orders, and shampoos his hair. Steve spreads wider and waits. Bucky rinses the shampoo out and Steve closes his eyes so he doesn’t get soap into them. Bucky turns towards him when he’s done, just a quarter turn but his foot is somehow under Steve’s balls. Steve whimpers. “Don’t you move,” Bucky says, and Steve stays where he is. Bucky gets more shampoo and somehow that makes the top of his foot lift and it presses against the cage.

Steve starts to tremble. Fingers shove into his hair as Bucky shampoos Steve’s hair too. “Head back.” Bucky orders, and he rinses Steve’s hair. He washes his own body next, foot moving closer, shin bone pressing into the cage and his balls.

Steve grunts at the hard pressure and almost swallows. And for some reason that’s when it’s all overwhelming. He starts to cry. He’s been clinging together, just barely, but now he’s shattered. He wraps his arms tighter around Bucky’s leg. His shoulders shake as he suddenly sobs and he almost swallows again. It’s a weird agony. A strange need- to swallow and yet he can’t. And the essence of Bucky is in his mouth. Depraved and thick and _his_.

Bucky starts washing his cock and his balls, right next to Steve’s face and he just doesn’t know how to process what’s happening. How he’s here but removed. How he can feel the heat and solidity of Bucky and still feel like he’s missing something. Like he is unfulfilled and unclaimed. The foot presses harder and Steve goes rigid, pain sweeping through him like a wave. He touches himself by pushing closer, frustrated and locked away.

He grinds harder, wishing he could feel the press of Bucky’s foot against the length of his cock but he can’t. It’s just pain and that sense of loss, almost like grief radiating upwards. He grips the bottom of the cage with one hand, fumbling with it. Almost trying to rip it off. The urge is there and it’s crazy.

He’d definitely hurt himself and it wouldn’t come off. He feels a little hysterical and like he needs to scream and just yank it off no matter how much it hurts him 

Grief is there too, welling up inside him like come, trapped behind the cage, like something definite. He can feel panic beating in his cock and his balls, like his heartbeat, and if the cage was off, if he could come then he’d feel different. Bucky gives Steve soap, tapping his shoulder and telling him to wash Bucky’s legs. He nods and obeys. He tries to press his closed mouth against Bucky’s heavy thighs. His focus needs to be on Bucky, not his own internal disaster.

He wants to _worship_ him, like some pagan god. He’d offer himself up as a sacrifice if he could. “Show me what’s in your mouth,” Bucky orders.

Steve does. He closes his mouth again. He has no idea what Bucky is thinking. Bucky pulls him to his feet, makes Steve face the wall and starts soaping Steve’s body. He does his arms and his stomach, spends a lot of time on his pecs. He rubs at Steve’s balls and alongside the cage while Steve whimpers and presses back into Bucky’s hard cock, begging silently to be fucked.

Bucky bites at the back of his neck, along the muscles of his shoulders, the bites getting harder, almost desperate. There’s a frustrated sound,like Bucky is being denied what he really wants. Bucky’s attention is elsewhere and Steve parts his cheek with one hand so Bucky’s cock can rub against his hole, hoping he’s somehow gotten away with something so provocative and maybe Bucky won’t notice or comment.

He gets one dirty grind in his crack, the heat and silkiness of Bucky’s cock pressing against Steve’s hole and he loves it. Could let Bucky live in his ass like that. Just as a way to keep him warm and with him. 

Bucky murmurs something and his fingers go down, delving between Steve’s cheeks. He presses a knuckle to Steve’s hole. “I think you should spit it out.” Steve goes still. Stunned. “I think I went too far. I’m sorry, Steve.”

Steve shakes his head. He needs to turn around and see Bucky’s face. Bucky is messing with him. He starts to turn and the metal hand is on his neck, squeezing tight. “Don’t you fucking dare,” Bucky growls.

Steve’s knees go weak and he doesn’t know what to do. Bucky kisses his skin, lips sliding across his shoulder, and lets his fingers play up and down Steve’s crack. What does he mean _spit it out_? And what is he apologizing for?

He gets Steve rinsed off and turns off the water. He gets them both towels and Steve is shaking with the need to face Bucky and know what he means.What if he makes him spit it out? Maybe he could just swallow and Bucky wouldn’t notice. And it’s been a few minutes now since Bucky told him to spit. Maybe he’s forgotten. He turns towards the wall. One step away, just a little distance and Steve can have it.

“Where are you going?” Bucky asks, quickly. The hand is back on Steve’s neck. It’s not fair. “You’re shaking like a leaf, babydoll. It’s too awful, Steve. I’m sorry. Hmm, I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, and then he’s cupping Steve’s cock and balls in his hand, which is pure fucking agony, and Steve would call him a fucking asshole if his mouth wasn’t full of come.

“I’m trying to be sweet to you, Steve.” He kisses Steve behind his ear, making him shiver. “Get down on your knees, mouth near the drain. Spit it out….And thank me.” Bucky isn’t smirking but Steve can just feel how pleased with himself he is. Bucky turns him towards the drain, presses his shoulder and Steve goes down to his knees again. “I’m waiting.”

Bucky puts a hand on the back of his neck, urging him over the drain. He can’t do it. His hands press into the floor. _Open your mouth, open your mouth_, he thinks.

He can’t. Fuck, he hurts. “You don’t want that, do you, Steve? It’s horrible. Be good and spit it out,” he says, and there’s a hand on his perineum, rubbing him there, then over his hole, none too gently, and then bumping the cage. Steve groans, low and wrecked. The tears are coming again.

“If you swallow that come then I’m going to have no choice but to treat you like the filthiest whore. Only a come slut would swallow that Steve. That’s not who you are, is it? Is that what you want? Is that what good boys do? What would those priests say if they could see you now?”

And just for punctuation’s sake Bucky smacks him, open handed on the crack of his ass, over his hole and it takes everything in him not to cry out. Fucking sadistic asshole.

Steve is falling apart. He doesn’t know what to do. He knows what he _wants_ and he knows what’s the _right_ thing to do, and he just can’t decide. “You have to decide, Steve. Do you want to be a filthy come slut? _My_ come slut? This isn’t a difficult decision. I’ll make it easier for you. Help you make the right decision,” he whispers, next to Steve’s ear. He’s rubbing his fingers between Steve’s cheeks, rubbing at his hole roughly. He presses back into it, welcoming the different type of pain.

“If you want me to fuck you then you spit it out. What do you want more, baby?” He tries to turn towards Bucky. He doesn’t mean it, does he? “Figure it out and I’ll be in the bedroom,” he says, and he opens the shower door and leaves.

Leaves! The fucking asshole just leaves him there. And how _dare_ he force Steve to decide between getting fucked, which he already promised to do, and swallowing this horrible come.

The thought of swallowing now is actually deeply unpleasant. In an objective sense. There’s no in-the-moment haze where he’d swallow as it pulsed onto his tongue. Where he can ignore the bitterness and consistency and lose himself to the satisfaction of a job well done. His reward. It may actually be a little difficult to get it down. He should take the out, spit in the fucking drain, go get fucked and retain his dignity or whatever it is he’d get to keep. That’s the decent thing to do.

Decency? An odd, puritanical self-respect that would please a religion that never really did anything good for him?

Is that important to him? What’s that gotten him in his life? And how decent would he be anyway? He’s still here, desperate to get fucked by the man he loves. Isn’t the judgement on his soul already made if he’s going by the church’s teachings? He makes his decision, gets to his feet and goes to the bedroom.

After getting a drink of water.

And brushing his teeth.


	10. Chapter 10

He goes into the bedroom and Bucky is there, waiting for him. There’s lube on the bedside table and some towels. Bucky casts a look at Steve and then pauses, trying to read him, apparently unable to do it. Small mercies, Steve thinks. Bucky is naked save for the towel wrapped around his hips. He walks over to Steve, brows in a frown.

“What did you do, in the end?”

“I thought you said you knew me.” He’s blushing. Not wanting to answer because he’s mortified and ashamed and also because he’s feeling a little defensive.

Bucky huffs. “I’m not sure I know you at all. Do you want me to know you?”

“Yes,” Steve says, without a doubt.

“How do I know you when you’re locked away from me? How do I know you when you won’t tell me what you want?” It’s a serious question. He kisses Steve on the forehead, squeezes his upper arms to soften the blow of his words.

“You just do,” Steve says, weakly.

Bucky sighs and holds him in his arms.

“You promised,” Steve says. “It’s not fair to promise me that and then threaten to take it away. _Please_. I want it so badly and you _said_.”

Bucky runs his hands up and down Steve’s back, soothing him. “Are you sure you want me to fuck you?” he asks, kissing Steve’s mouth. Steve wraps his arms around Bucky’s neck and presses close, crying out and then sobbing as the cage gets squeezed.

“I’m sure,” Steve says, voice breaking.

“Softly then. Gentle. You and me,” Bucky whispers.

Steve takes in a few deep breaths, trembling in shocks of pain from the cage. “Need to feel you.” He can’t tell Bucky to fuck him hard. But that’s what he needs and hopefully he can make Bucky understand.

“Lay on the bed, sweetheart. I’m going to take care of you, get my mouth on you.”

Steve nods and whimpers, moves gingerly to the bed and lays down on his back. His eyes close and he breathes, trying to find calm and the ability to focus and be actively involved in getting fucked for the first time. “Spread your legs, knees up, baby.” Bucky kisses Steve’s thigh, sucks a hickey into his skin and does it to the other one. He avoids the cage all together and Steve is so relieved he thanks him over and over again. Lips on his hole, hands pressing his thighs back so he tilts up. “Stay like this. Use your hands to keep yourself wide open,” he orders. Steve obeys but is so embarrassed he closes his eyes. 

“No,” he gasps, as Bucky begins to lick at him. Bucky pulls away from him, rubs his finger over Steve’s spit slick hole. Steve feels it twitching, clenching on Bucky’s finger as he touches a finger to the rim.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, looking at Steve. The blue of his eyes is oddly shocking and makes Steve’s dick pulse in agonized denial. It’s like an internal contraction of pain and build-up. He groans.

Steve can’t say what’s wrong.

“Then this is what you get,” Bucky says, with a dark smile. He goes back and kisses Steve on his hole, pressing his tongue against him, sloppy and wet and then just licking him.

Steve lays there, legs open as he lets Bucky do this to him. It’s so sweet and soft and he can barely feel it compared to the cage.

He _needs_ to feel it. He opens his legs wider and rocks against Bucky’s tongue, encouraging him to go harder. “What is it, sweetheart?” Bucky asks him, lifting his head. He presses a knuckle against Steve’s rim and Steve knows it’s sinking into him, that he’s softer there, more open. Of course he is.

He gives Bucky a look. “You know.”

“I don’t know. I don’t have any idea.” He can’t even see Bucky’s cock. Bucky’s laying at the foot of the bed, head between Steve’s thighs, making this about Steve which is just so fucking annoying. Bucky goes back to kissing him, licking him open. Steve is sopping back there.

And he knows he’s clean (as clean as one can be considering) but this isn’t good. “You’re tight, Stevie. Do you play with yourself here?”

“No.” He says, like Bucky is a deviant for bringing it up.

“How come you want it so bad if you don’t even play with yourself? If you know you love it, I’d think you’d be doing it. Get a dildo to open you up. A few toys to help you milk your prostate.”

“No,” he says, but his voice is softer now. Because he’s seen a few of those videos and it’s…. It looked amazing. He could hear the men on these videos, recording themselves and panting, working themselves open. The squish of it all and the length of time it took to get a release. If Steve went down that road he’d never come back.

He’d have so many dildos and _things_ to facilitate his perverse nature. If it was meant to be done it wouldn’t require so much stuff to make it happen. Lube and prostate massagers and plugs, dildos and vibrators. _No, no, no._ What he does now is enough of a concession. He comes in the night and he leaks a bit during the day, the pain keeps him grounded and not obsessed with feeling good, and that’s _plenty_.

Bucky looks at him again, keeps eye contact and forces Steve’s thigh wider. Steve gasps and arches down into the bed like a whore. “Touch your tits, baby.”

His cock tries to jerk in the cage and he whimpers. It’s the order, the word. “That’s not….”

“What?” Bucky challenges. “Pinch your nipples. Entertain me.”

He shakes his head in protest but his mind is only thinking yes and more and please. If he opens his mouth to complain, he isn’t sure what he will say. He hears the snick of a cap and puts his hands on his chest like Bucky wants.

“Good. Keep going. Do what feels good, Steve. Show me. If you can’t say it then you better fucking show me.” Steve bites his lip, closes his eyes and pinches and grabs at his chest, hard. Bucky slips a finger inside him.

“Mmm…oh,” And he’s just making noises as Bucky pulls his finger out of him, gets more lube on Steve’s hole and presses back in. _Two, two, two, please, do two. Do your hand. Do your fist. Whatever you want_, he desperately thinks. His lips stay pressed together tight so the words don’t slip out.

Bucky puts two fingers at Steve’s rim, just circling and touching. “You didn’t tell me if you swallowed or not.” Fuck, his cock is trying to lift and get hard again, another surge of arousal. Bucky presses them into him, sinks slowly in. “How does it feel, Steve? Do you like it?” he asks.

He reaches for Bucky, pulls him up into a kiss and moves his hips, fucking himself on Bucky’s fingers, eagerly. Wanton. His hand covers Bucky’s, urges him deeper inside him. “Please,” he begs.

Bucky swears and grinds his hard cock against Steve’s thigh, fucking his fingers in and out of Steve’s hole. “You’re so tight. Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Yes,” he whispers. Bucky pulls out of his ass, gets lube on three fingers and goes back, patient, at his entrance. Steve covers Bucky’s hand again, trying to shove the fingers into him. His hand is trembling.

“Shhh, you’ll hurt yourself, sweetheart.” Bucky says, resisting him. Steve exhales sharply, presses up and into the fingers, trying to impale himself. “Well, alright, sweetheart. I understand,” Bucky murmurs and kisses him. He’s so grateful he moans loudly, nodding into the kiss. Bucky pulls away, lies down onto his back and looks at Steve.

“What? What is this?” Steve finally asks, voice hoarse.

“Isn’t this what you want? You don’t seem very happy with the pace I’m setting. So, you can lead. I’ll just lay here and let you do the work.” His gaze drops to Steve’s chest. “I’m going to leave bruises on your tits.”

“Bucky, no. Please, I want you to do it.”

“Come on, enough of this. I’m sick of it for today. You’re not a shy fucking virgin. You’re Steve Fucking Rogers. You pick fights, refuse to die, and you’re my come slut, so come and get it.”

“_Bucky_,” he manages, begging with one word. He lets the tears come, keeps his face to Bucky so he can see how hard this is. How impossible. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I do…want it. But you do it.”

Bucky leans over him, kisses the tears away with a gentle sound. “Nobody has ever looked more beautiful crying than you do. You should see your eyes, Stevie. How blue they are. How soft you look. The color in your cheeks, that lower lip… I fucking love it when you cry for me.”

Steve smiles shakily at him. Yeah, he knows how much Bucky likes it.

“Fuck, Stevie, you like it, too, don’t you? Crying for me?”

“Of course I do,” he says, brushing his nose against Bucky’s lip. That’s an easy confession compared to everything else.

“Did you swallow my come, baby?” Bucky runs a hand down Steve’s body, to the cage and Steve’s balls, which makes him tremble and flinch. His hand goes back, two fingers into Steve’s hole and he nods, feels so good now that Bucky has fingers back inside him that he breathes out the answer.

“Yeah.”

“Did you like it?” Bucky asks, pumping in and out, making it hard to think. Steve writhes and doesn’t answer. “Two loads of come in your stomach already, and you can have one in your ass. Maybe two. You’re so fucking hot I can do two if you can take it. I want you to leak, Stevie. Stand up and feel it on your legs. From where I fucked you. Is that what my come slut wants, too?”

“Bucky,” he says, agonized and needy.

“Be a good slut and ride my cock if you want my come.” His fingers disappear. Bucky lays back down. He starts touching himself. Steve sits up, puts a hand over Bucky’s so Bucky stops touching himself. Oh, he can already feel a twinge of something in his ass, just from Bucky’s fingers. “You can cry, baby. Come on now,” Bucky says, and somehow he’s pulling Steve on top of him. Steve is straddling him, practically hyperventilating. He shakes his head no. He can’t. He just can’t.

Bucky surges upwards, licks the tears away and fumbles with his own cock. He gets lube on it, awkward while Steve hovers over him, terrified. He’s wet now, hands on Steve’s hips, and then lining himself up with Steve’s hole.

“I thought you wanted it,” Bucky says. “Prove it, Stevie.”

Bucky kisses him gently, is rough with his chest for a minute, taking Steve’s nipple into his mouth and sucking on it hard. He moans when he pulls away. “Don’t you feel me? Don’t you want me?”

“You. I can’t.” The head of Bucky’s cock is burning at his entrance. He aches there too, wanting it so bad. Bucky is holding himself at Steve’s entrance. He feels a finger brush against the inside of his thigh, reassuring him. 

“Sweetheart, of course you can. Have a nice little sit down on my cock. Let’s get you split open on it, isn’t that what you want?”

Of course he does. But, he can’t say it and his instinct is to deny it. “No, I don’t—“ He has no words. He starts to shrink away. Bucky frowns at him and lays back down and that’s much worse. He’s so exposed now. Cold. Weren’t they in this together? “No, help me,” he whispers.

“Then don’t say that you _don’t_ like it when you desperately fucking want it, understand? Every once in a while you have to help me, too. Reassure _me_. You fucking want this, and you beg me, and so here we are. And I’ll do all of it, Steve. As much as I can, but if you say no and don’t and just want me to ignore that… no way. Not the first time. So, you’re going to fuck me now or I’m just going to jerk off. You’ve got two options.”

Bucky is serious. He knows the set of Bucky’s mouth, the slight pout of his lower lip, the way his jaw is clenched. Bucky has reached his limit. He’s cajoled and done his best to do what Steve wants and read his mind but now that they’ve come this far, Steve’s faux balking has to end. This final moment where they come together and Bucky is telling him it’s going to be equal or it’s over.

He puts hands on Bucky’s chest and presses down, can feel in minute detail how his body is opening to take Bucky’s cock. He has to stop almost immediately. Panting, blinking through tears.

“Thank you, Stevie. Tell me,” he orders. “Are you ashamed or in pain?”

It’s both. He glares at Bucky. His hole spasms, clenching and relaxing and he takes more, knows the moment the head is completely inside him. “Fuck, that’s amazing.” Bucky gasps, closing his eyes. His cheeks are flushed and for once it looks like _he’s_ having difficulty. Fucking about time.

He eases Bucky into him, closing his eyes and blocking out Bucky and the shame of it all and just works on taking the cock into himself. His thighs are burning by the time he’s in. He feels the cage touch Bucky’s skin first. Pain spasms through him at the contact and he arches back, grinding onto Bucky’s cock like a whore, overwhelmed at the feelings.

He’s going to come. It’s there and he rocks, grinds and then he’s on the edge and it’s suddenly gone. He opens his eyes at the feel of wetness and watches as his cock drools a steady stream of come.

He feels even more vulnerable than before. Maybe even more ashamed. Bucky sits up and kisses him, gets a hand on Steve’s lower back, between his cheeks and next to his hole. “You want to lift up or just like this?” he asks, panting. His cock is so hard in Steve and he can tell Bucky is on the edge.

“I don’t know.”

“Then let’s do it like this. Okay, beautiful? Move your hips a little, I don’t need a lot. You’re so fucking hot inside. It’s unbearable, Steve. Feeling this good.” Bucky drops his head forward and lets Steve rock him to orgasm, huge gasps and hands clenching on Steve’s hips. He feels Bucky come inside him, knows the moment it happens. They stay like that for a little while and Steve takes stock of his cock. The ache in his balls has subsided a little with the release. He looks to see what’s there and discovers what a mess he is, just how much he’s been spilling out as he worked Bucky’s cock inside him.

“Are you sore?” Bucky asks him, hands roaming over Steve, kissing everywhere he can reach. No, he’s pissed off.

“I want you to fuck me like you promised,” Steve demands, voice shaking. He’s got that lonely and devastated feeling again. He needs it hard, needs to feel him.

“Okay. Thank you for that and for telling me, sweetheart. Look at me,” Steve looks at him. “Thank you. I needed that,” he says, so sincere that Steve blushes and bites his lip. Bucky’s hands on his chest tighten. Fuck, he will bruise. A high sound comes from his throat. “Lovely,” Bucky murmurs. “You need me to take care of you now, babydoll?”

More than anything, he thinks, trying to pull Bucky closer. There’s a bit of madness to it, Steve thinks, as he digs his nails into Bucky’s back. Bucky growls at him.

He shifts them over, inhumanly strong so Steve is on his back. He pulls out, all the way out and then slides back into him, long and slow. His body doesn’t know what’s happening. He’s just loose enough now that his body opens, receptive, but it hurts. It’s overwhelming and too much. It’s everything he’s ever wanted it to be. “I love you,” Steve says, and he wraps his thighs around Bucky’s hips.

“I love you, too.”

Steve presses his hand into the meat of Bucky’s right buttock, hard enough to bruise and Bucky gives him a look. “You want it hard?”

He nods. Bucky changes his position, holds him differently, is somehow more distant and aggressive, as he finally gives Steve what he wants. It’s the look on his face, the calculation in his eyes. He’s not looking for the same cues as he was before. He’s looking for signs that it’s too much, that he’s hurting Steve and that Steve is getting off on it. Steve nods. That’s exactly what he needs.

It hurts and he can’t escape. He’s oppressed and fucked open. Bucky pulls all the way out of him and he whimpers a no at the loss. Bucky shoves back inside of him hard, to the root, treating Steve like he’s done this before, causing a throb and tears to come to his eyes. And the shame of it all is there, too. He’s squishing inside with come, knows it must be leaking out of him as Bucky fucks him deep and long, chasing his own orgasm, using Steve.

The burn of it all, the impossible stretch and pull on his rim, how hot he feels down there makes him feel perfect. Complete. Bucky fucks him and fucks him and when he finally comes, slamming deep, pulsing inside of him, Steve is shaking.

Bucky stays over him until he slips out and then moves down Steve’s body to look. “You’re sore and puffy, baby.” Steve puts a hand down. Come slips over his fingers and he wishes he could keep it inside. He turns over, wanting to keep it but it makes no difference and it leaks out of him.

He wanted that. Inside him. Marking him up. What does that make him that Bucky’s come slipping out of him makes him sad? What does it make him that he’s going to need to find a way to keep it all inside him? He cries. Which he can tell absolutely terrifies Bucky. From the way he’s suddenly turned back over and grabbed hard.

“What?” Bucky demands, looking terrified. “Did I hurt you?”

Bucky’s fear is the only thing that can make him honest. Easing that is more important than his shame. “No. It’s just. It was beautiful. I wanted it. And then it all slipped out.”

He’s looking at Steve like Steve might be lying. Bucky finally nods and kisses his forehead. “Okay. Alright. Then we’ll find a way to fix that, won’t we?” he murmurs, and his teeth set into the tendon of Steve’s neck, his fingers go down, Steve moving to accommodate him, to_ let_ him and Bucky presses his fingers into Steve’s swollen passage. Steve draws in a sharp breath, clenches on Bucky’s fingers and Bucky presses in and out of him like he just can’t stay away, can’t help himself. Finally, he sighs and lets his fingers slip away.

Steve puts his own hand down there, feeling empty. He wants to just shove his fingers in there and fall asleep like that. He can’t. That’s filthy and depraved. He settles on putting his hand protectively over his hole, feels how open and hot he is.

It feels so strange. This is never how his body has felt. He aches and throbs somewhere new and different. He’s wet and sloppy. “You keeping that safe now, too?” Bucky asks, a smile in his voice.

“I don’t know.”

“I think you are. You keep that hole safe for me, hmm? Keep your hand on it, keep my come in you as best you can until I can get everything sorted out.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asks, uncertainly. His heart is beating faster.

Bucky kisses his forehead, and then gets him an ice pack. He’s never felt better in his life. Bucky is making plans, possessive and covetous over Steve and his hole.

Everything is perfect, he thinks, hissing as the familiar bite of cold seeps into his groin.


	11. Chapter 11

Steve gets called out on a mission a few hours later. Bucky gets him showered and fed, sends him on his way with a kiss and cleans his apartment. It takes up some time but not nearly enough.

His apartment is large and empty. It’s not going to feel right until Steve is back from his mission, and even then it’s only going to feel right when Steve is here with him. This thing with Steve is both new and long overdue. As far as Bucky isconcerned, the deal is done. Steve should be living with him and now they get to not only be together like they used to, but they get sex and love too. It’s perfect.

“I think you should move in with me when you get back,” he texts. Steve’s been gone three hours.

“Shouldn’t you take me out to dinner and woo me for awhile?” Steve texts back a few minutes later.

“I gave you that half a chocolate bar in 1944 that I took off a dead German. What more do you want?”

“That isn’t wooing.”

“I disagree. And the way you cuddled up to me and sighed after a bit of chocolate indicates otherwise. How about a nice tin of spam once you’re settled?”

“Some people like flowers….”Steve texts.

“If I give you flowers will you move in with me?”

“Yes, Bucky. Of course.” Steve says. It’s that easy. He grins so hard his face hurts.

“My apartment is better than yours.” 

“I’m on a mission! Back in 48 hours.”

“Do we need a moving truck? You own practically nothing.”

“No. I can just do a few trips back and forth. Can’t get out of there until I give 30 days, anyway. And I want the Spam.”

“I’m going to get a bigger bed.”

“Nat says to get a cal king. She’s not sure they make Spam anymore.”

“Tell her I said hi. Why are you telling her already?”

“I’m not. She was looking over my shoulder.”

“K. Good luck. Love you. Let me know when you’re safe,” Bucky texts. 

“Will do. Love you, too.”

_Right._ It’s time to do some shopping.

36 hours later Steve texts to say that the op is complete. No injuries, but everyone is tired. Steve gets there a few hours later, straight from his mission, shield on his back.

Bucky leans in to kiss him. “I haven’t showered in 2 days.”

Bucky sighs. He knows how fastidious Steve can be. He goes back to the kitchen while Steve takes a shower.

“I need clothes,” Steve calls.

“For what?” Bucky shouts, knowing the water will be loud.

“Very funny.”

Bucky shrugs. Why would he give Steve clothes when he’s just going to take them off of him again? He waits a few minutes and then strips off his own clothes and goes into the bathroom. The cage is sitting on the counter. Bucky grabs a few things he’d purchased (he may have made plans for this specific scenario) and then opens the shower door. Of course, all he can see is Steve’s ass. And yeah, he’s got an amazing ass, but his cock is the thing Bucky doesn’t get to see. He steps up behind him, his own cock already hard.

“I missed you,” he whispers, kissing Steve’ slick back.

“I missed you, too,” Steve breathes, head falling forward as Bucky kisses him.

“You’re going to let me, aren’t you?”He cups Steve’s pecs in his hands, squeezing hard and playing with his nipples.

“Fuck.” A hard shiver goes through Steve. “Whatever you want, Buck.”

“Put your hands on the tile.”

“Bucky,” he begs. He kisses Steve’s neck, grinds his cock between Steve’s cheeks and lets out a needy sigh near his ear. “You missed me?” Steve asks, sweet and blushing.

“I missed you so fucking much. You’ve got me hard enough to pound nails, baby. As soon as you left I wanted you back. And then I went to bed and I was all lonely thinking of you and all the things I want to do to you….”

Steve shifts back against him, head tilting down and a little bit to the side, offering Bucky a place to bite. “What do you want to do to me?” he asks, quiet. Shy.

“I bought you things. Bought us things. Besides a bed. I was laying there with my dick in my hand, wishing it was your mouth and I was thinking about all the sounds you make for me, and how pretty you are all locked up, and I wondered what else we could lock up.”

Steve stands upright. He doesn’t turn around but Bucky knows his instinct is to turn around. To see Bucky’s face so he can gauge how serious he is.

“I could gag you and take away your mouth.” Steve shakes his head slightly, but doesn’t say anything. His hand twitches on the tile. “I could put clamps on your nipples, get them all covered up in metal and it’d hurt so much when I played with you like this,” he says, squeezing Steve’s pecs. A hand comes off the tile and Steve is touching himself. He groans loudly, desperate, and it’s a sound Bucky has never heard before.

It’s only a sound of need and pleasure. There’s no pain in it and Bucky grabs himself at the base of his cock so he doesn’t come all over Steve’s back. “And I could plug you up, here,”he says, stroking his knuckle down Steve’s taint and pressing against his hole. “Keep you full and heavy with my come and a big fake cock, make sure you’re ready for when I need you again.”

Steve is jerking himself off. Bucky can see his hand moving up and down, hear the change in his breathing. He still can’t fucking see him, though. Bucky runs a hand down Steve’s arm. Steve whimpers and stops jerking off with a grunt. Bucky lets his fingers trail down to Steve’s wrist, lifts his hand away and brings it up so Steve’s hand goes behind Bucky’s neck. It’s awkward for Steve, makes his chest open. Vulnerable.

“I fucking missed you. Can we try it without the cage a little? Can I touch you right now?”

“How many times will you come in me?” Steve asks, quietly.

Bucky laughs. “What is this, a negotiation?”

“Might be. How long do you want me out of it?” he asks. Bucky gives Steve some space and gets the lube, but Steve half turns, frowning at being let go. Bucky opens the bottle and Steve turns back around, a flush all along the back of his neck. “You bought new lube.”

“I did. Longer lasting. Can I open you up, sweetheart?”

Steve sighs when Bucky presses his chest against Steve’s back. “Anything you want,” he says. “What… what do I get if I keep the cage off for a bit?”

Bucky laughs and slaps Steve on the ass. “You get orgasms. You get my mouth on your dick. But, I’m guessing that’s all fairly obvious. What do you want? Anything you want, Stevie,” he says, and presses a finger to Steve’s tightly furled hole. He strokes over it and pushes his finger in to the second knuckle. He draws out and puts on more lube, presses his finger into Steve who’s so hot and tight it’s making his own dick leak.

“Close your eyes,” Bucky orders, and Steve does. Nodding so Bucky knows it’s done. Bucky presses two fingers into Steve and kisses his collarbone. “What do you want?” he asks again. He presses his fingers deeper and Steve gasps.

“Fuck I might come from this,” Steve gets out all in a rush.

“How fucking hot would that be?” Bucky growls, pulls his fingers out all the way and then pushes back inside. Steve makes a little sound of discomfort and Bucky sucks a hard bruise into his skin, using his teeth until Steve shivers.

“That sound. That sound you make when I hurt you just a little. Babydoll. I want all those sounds,” he says, voice almost shaking with how much he wants it. Bucky takes his fingers out again and then pushes back in and Steve’s rim is getting pink and warm. Two fingers go all the way inside him and more broken noises come from Steve’s throat.

“Christ. That’s why I want you like this for a bit. Just a little bit. I want to know what you sound like when I fuck you and _I _make you hurt, not the cage. I’ll do that. I’ll hurt you. You know I will, right? Promise, Stevie. Keep it off, just for a little bit and I’ll hurt you so good.”

“I love you. Go ahead. I’m good with it,” Steve says, grinding back onto Bucky’s fingers.Bucky pulls his fingers out and he puts more lube on, gets three fingers at the ready. His forehead is resting on Steve’s back while he presses his fingers inside to the first knuckle.“Oh…Oh, Buck. Uh, that’s so _much_. No, don’t stop. Please,” Steve swallows audibly, shifting, pressing back against Bucky’s fingers. “Yeah, do it.”

“Don’t you touch your fucking cock,” Bucky orders and Steve breaks out in goosebumps as he presses deeper into him. He breaches him steadily. Steve goes up on tiptoes like he’s trying to avoid it and Bucky stills, feels Steve’s body ripple around him.

“I need you. Please, just fuck me.”

“Hush, sweetheart. We’re going as fast as we can. You’ve got a long night ahead of you. I’m going to use you hard, Steve. You keep it off for a little while and I’ll come in you and fuck you sore and you can whimper and groan because of how _I _make you feel. Steve. Steve, you have no idea how much I want that.” Steve practically growls at that and he pushes back onto Bucky’s fingers, driving them deep inside him. Steve’s passage clenches on him.

Steve is panting. “I just want you to fuck me. I know the prep is… but I need you.”

“It’s just this time that’s slow, sweetheart. We can keep you open after. Make sure you don’t close up all tight again until we’re ready for it.”

“How many times?” Steve asks again. “Because I’m doing this. Giving you….how many do I get?” Steve’s a little frantic and it takes Bucky takes a moment to get his brain working again and piece it all together. How many times will Bucky come in him?

“All together? Just in your ass?” Steve presses onto his fingers so Bucky knows he means in his ass. “Tell me what number I’m thinking of,” Bucky asks, quietly. It’s Steve’s body and he has no idea how Steve is feeling about all this. If he says two or even one then he might back off the idea all together. See if Steve just needs the cage back on. But, he’d bet a million dollars Steve won’t change his mind. He’s gagging for it.

“4…maybe….maybe 5?” Steve answers, hesitantly. “Last one with the cage on?” 

Bucky’s stunned speechless. Steve seems to shrink in on himself, horrified to have said it aloud. He pumps his fingers in and out of Steve’s hole to get him back into the right headspace. Anytime Steve manages to articulate anything he needs to reward him. “?Five?” He nips Steve’s earlobe, pulls out of Steve’s ass and slicks up his cock, presses the head to Steve’s pink hole and presses gently in. “Grab your cheeks, open yourself up for me and get your face and chest onto the tile.”

“Oh god,” Steve whispers and goes eagerly forward, hands back to his perfect ass cheeks and pulls them apart. Bucky pushes deeper, the head inside of Steve and Steve gasps. His eyes are closed, his mouth is open and he looks like he fucking loves it.

“Here’s the problem with four or maybe five,” Bucky says, and fucks deeper into Steve until half his cock is buried inside him. “I’m a super soldier. That’s almost insulting. You combine that with how much I want to fuck you…I’m thinking that was a conservative number.” He looks down at Steve’s hole, pulls his cock out and then fucks deep into him, not stopping until he bottoms out.

“Uh! Fuck. So deep…. Um, you’re right. Thank you,” Steve murmurs, body rippling around Bucky’s shaft. It’s not just for the dick, which he looks pretty fucking grateful for, but the idea of a higher number.

“So good, Steve. So unbelievably good. How about _six_, sweetheart? You want to drain me dry? See how long that takes? Wake you up in the night a few times until the mission is completed?”

“Shit. Hold my hands,” Steve gasps, and Bucky grabs them, wrapping his arms and Steve’s arms around his torso.

“Were you going to jerk off?”

A nod.

“I think you’re going to come on my cock.” He pulls out half-way and fucks deep, grinding in for that last fraction of an inch. Steve pants and trembles in his arms as he drags his hips back and slides back in again. He keeps it gentle, not thrusting hard or trying to hit Steve’s prostate. He can do that later. Bucky chases his own pleasure, presses forward with a thrust that makes Steve grip him harder and comes.

Steve is shaking. “I…I didn’t…I need,” he sounds desperate.

“Hands on my hips, baby. Keep my cock in you while I get the plug sorted.

“_What?_” He wishes he could see the look of shock on Steve’s face.

“I brought it with me into the shower. I was thinking ahead. This is what happens when you face the wall the whole time. You don’t know what’s going on. Now you just have to take it.”

Steve grinds back and Bucky is still so hard and sensitive that he grunts.

“Fuck. I’m gonna….” Steve is gasping and twitching, riding the edge of orgasm all the sudden, the idea of taking it and not knowing what’s going to happen apparently enough to get him teetering on the edge. Bucky knows he’ll be using that information against Steve all the fucking time now.“Bucky. just a stroke. Your hand on my…tight…One. I can do it.”

“A deep stroke? I wrap my hand around the base of your cock and slide all the way up? Or start at the top, hand over the head, a little squeeze, and go down?”

Steve huffs out a breath, straining to come. Bucky kisses the side of his neck. “I’m going to pull out of you now, and I’m going to put the plug straight in.”

He pulls out carefully. “But, I…._uhh_, oh…Bucky, it’s leaking. It’s all coming out,” Steve says, and Bucky shushes him, plug coated with lube and pressing into Steve’s hole. His body swallows it up, just as greedy as the rest of Steve is, he thinks. Bucky turns Steve a little, washes the come off Steve’s legs and then soaps his own cock, while Steve stands there and stares at him, frustrated and denied. Bucky turns off the water.

Steve’s eyes are glazed with desperation. His cock is a dark red color, flat against his stomach. He’s gorgeous. Even his balls are swollen and prettily flushed. “What about me?” Steve asks.

“Do you want the handcuffs so you don’t touch yourself?”

Steve blinks.

“I said I wanted you out of the cage. You coming a lot isn’t a concern of mine. You know you’ll come. Probably the next time I fuck you. You just have to be a little patient.”

Steve swallows. Looks down at his cock and then away. His cock twitches, come wells out of the top and slides down the shaft. His hands are tight fists at his sides. Bucky takes Steve’s hands, laces their fingers together. Steve tries to move into him, wanting to press his cock against Bucky and come. Bucky holds him back. “Let’s go get the cuffs, Stevie.”

Bucky dries them both off, careful to avoid Steve’s cock. He presses the towel gently against Steve’s balls, curious to see what will happen, although he’s pretty sure Steve has backed away from the edge enough by the time hegets there, that the pressure won’t be enough to make him come. And if it did, well, that would be pretty impressive in itself. And Steve would be mortified. So, there’s that.

But Steve doesn’t come when Bucky presses the towel there. His hand lands on Bucky’s shoulder. He trembles as he holds himself still and Bucky pulls the towel away and stands back up, presses a gentle kiss to Steve’s lips. They’re in a hard, flat line. His nostrils flare. “Do you need it, Stevie? Or do you want me to keep saying no?”

“I like no,” he says, closing his eyes to get the words out. 

“Good. Come on, sweetheart. I’m wanting you again,” Bucky leads them out of the shower. He gets the vibranium cuffs on Steve, hands behind his back and then gets him to the bed.

“What do you think? Bucky asks.

“Nice.” Steve says, taking in the new bed. “The rug is good, too. “

“Nat told Pepper we were moving in together and it showed up this morning.”

“Uh huh.” 

“Let me put the towels down,” Bucky says. He lays out some towels and looks at Steve, frowning. Steve rolls his eyes and holds his hands out. “You don’t have to be a smart ass about it,” Bucky says, undoing the cuffs and putting them on again when Steve gets his arms in front of him.

Steve moves to the bed, gets onto the towels and makes a low sound as the plug shifts inside of him. He’s on his knees and elbows.

“On your back,” Bucky says, smugly. “You’re not here to make assumptions. Just do what you’re told.”

Steve glares at him. “I _know_ you were going to do it this way. You’re just being contrary. So, let’s do it this way. I’m already here.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“If you fuck me this way I won’t leak and I won’t get direct stimulation on my cock.”

“Aren’t you more than a hot piece of ass? Thinking you’re so clever.” He slaps him and Steve jerks forward. “Get on your back.”

Steve sighs like Bucky is a moron but obeys. He spreads his legs. The plug is navy and seeing it makes the need to fuck Steve become urgent.

He gathers the few supplies he wants and gets onto the bed between Steve’s legs. “You really think you’ll come if the head of your cock rubs against your stomach a little?” he asks, like he’s genuinely wondering.

“I haven’t come in days and I live in a fucking cage. Of _course_, I’m going to come,” Steve practically growls.

“Hm,” Bucky shrugs. “We’ll see.” He tries not to smile. “Do you remember when—“

“What the fuck are you going to do?” Steve demands.

He bites the inside of his cheek so he doesn’t laugh. “Stevie, I’m trying to reminisce with you about the good old days of segregation and intense poverty,” Bucky says, in a tone that would get him punched if Steve wasn’t in cuffs.

Steve’s cock twitches, the head glistens. “I can’t believe this turns me on,” Steve grumbles, voice flat with annoyance.

“I can. Do you want to know what I’m going to do, or do you just want me to do it?”

Steve stares at him. “I can’t figure out if you want to tell me so I’ll dread it, or if you’re _actuall_y trying to give me a choice.”

“Unless you safeword, it’s happening,” Bucky tells him.

“Fine. Tell me.”

“Remember when you put the menthol in my vaseline?”

“You’re fucking kidding me.” Steve almost shouts.

“Hush. It’s not menthol. I’m not that much of an asshole.”

Steve laughs. “Yes, you are!”

“Well, it’s not happening _today_. Don’t be so dramatic. It’s numbing cream. I figured we could put a little bit, just where you’re going to rub, to make sure you don’t come from the friction.”

Steve closes his eyes, takes a breath, thinking about it. “Okay,” he says, agreeing quickly enough.

Bucky doesn’t hesitate. He has permission, and the last thing he wants is for Steve to change his mind. He pops the cap, takes a dab of it and carefully lifts Steve’s cock with his index finger, sliding it along the base where he won’t feel it all that much. Steve groans, hips twitching at the light touch.

“God, you have no idea how sexy you are. You are so fucking sensitive. I could wreck you, Stevie.”

Steve swallows hard. His eyes dart away. “How about you make good on one promise first?” he says, finally. Bucky wipes away the small drips of pre-come that have leaked out of Steve, getting his stomach dry before he puts the cream on him in a thick layer. Steve groans as Bucky takes his finger away, his cock going back down to lie flat on his stomach and in the cream. Steve is staring at it. He licks his lips. “I thought you were going to touch me. Touch the…head, and I,” he blinks tears and looks at Bucky. “You always know. I love you for knowing and trying to work it out. I know it’s stupid that I just can’t say it….”

“You say it a bit. The more worked up or annoyed you are, the more you’re willing to say. And, you know I like it. Like everything with you.”

Steve blushes. “If it hurts a lot, then I’ll say stuff.”

Bucky nods. He’s noticed that too. He gets the pillow he’d bought just to fuck Steve and Steve lifts his hips so Bucky can get him where he wants him.

“I don’t want to come yet,” Steve confesses.

“Better you than me. I’m so fucking hard and coming in you is god damned incredible.”

Steve turns more red. Somehow. Bucky winks at him. “You should thank me. That was a compliment.”

“Thank you,” he says, and Bucky kisses his knee since it’s easy to get to. He bites Steve’s thigh and Steve’s hips rise up to meet him. “Fuck!” he gasps, holding still. His cock is twitching dangerously. “It isn’t working,” Steve grits out.

“It just needs a couple minutes.” Bucky gets a smaller towel and puts it under Steve’s hips while they’re still lifted. Steve is panting, trying not to come, clearly worried that the small friction he’ll feel when he lowers his hips will send him over the edge. Bucky gets his cock slicked up and touches the plug.

“Buck, stop.”

“Brooklyn?” he asks, curious, pausing.

“No, but— fuck. Please, please,” he begs as Bucky goes back to touching him.

“I’m ready to fuck you now. I’m sorry you don’t want to come and you want to drag it out but I’ve got a mission here of coming in you several more times and it’s time to move this along.”

“Bucky, Bucky,” he gasps, reaching his cuffed hands for him.

“Don’t worry. The next one won’t be so easy. I’ll get you all crying and sweet because you need to come so bad, but it isn’t on this one, pal.” He pulls the plug out slowly and Steve shoves his hands over his head, grabbing the bedding so he doesn’t grab his cock.

He takes a moment to admire Steve’s hole, a little pink, maybe a little swollen but basically perfect except he’s a open a little. Open enough that two fingers can slide into him easily. Steve’s eyes are slammed shut and he’s biting his lip hard as he tries not to come.

“Jesus, you’re so fucking beautiful,” Bucky says and pushes his cock back into Steve. He goes straight in, all the way until he’s flush against Steve’s balls. Steve cries out, back arching off the bed at the contact. He collapses back down, the head of his cock slides against his stomach and Steve comes in hard pulses up his chest and onto his neck. It goes on and on and Bucky fucks him through it, letting Steve’s clenching and the sounds he’s making overwhelm him, on the edge of coming just as Steve starts to whimper, over-sensitized and uncomfortable now that he’s spent.

“Hurts,” Steve gasps, just as Bucky comes, releasing into Steve in heavy spurts. He gives them both a minute and pulls out, gets the plug and presses it into Steve after a cursory glance. He’s pinker than he was, a little more swollen and he’s slick everywhere, come trembling on the rim of his hole.

“Lovely,” Bucky says, stroking gently over the plug once it’s seated. He gets a large amount of numbing cream in his hand and grabs Steve’s freshly spent cock. Steve’s eyes open, his hands grab at Bucky.

Bucky rubs cream into the shaft and onto the top of his glans. Steve’s cock jerks in his hand and Bucky stays still for a moment as Steve struggles with the intensity of it all. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to touch you all over. I’m going to jerk your cock while I fuck you and this will make it so you don’t come so quickly.”

He sees Steve thinking. “Well, it’s not the worst idea.” Bucky’s brows raise. It’s always interesting what Steve easily capitulates to.“The fact that this is a good idea is a fairly damning indictment,” Steve says, thoughtfully.

Bucky chuckles. He squeezes a glob onto Steve’s balls and gently strokes it in with flat fingers, careful. Steve whimpers at each touch, hips pushing up and then away, a constant stream of sounds coming from him. He has no idea if Steve is loving this or hating it.

He pauses, wanting the cream to work for a minute before he finishes rubbing it in. “You gonna leave it like that?” Steve asks.

“Has anyone ever told you to be patient?”

“Not once,” he says, wide-eyed.

“Punk.” Bucky licks his lips, feels his own dick start to get hard as he goes back to stroking Steve and getting it all rubbed in. Steve’s cock hasn’t softened at all and when the cream is finally rubbed in, he’s panting, eyes half closed with pleasure despite the oversensitivity.

Bucky wipes his hands and picks up the tube of cream. “Ten minutes? You want something to drink?”

“I need you to kiss me,” Steve says. Bucky moves over, lays beside him and kisses him for several minutes. Steve is sweet and receptive, lets Bucky control the pace and the depth. He touches Steve’s dick eventually, a few fingers on the shaft and strokes up and down. Steve opens his eyes, curious.

“Wow. That’s…I can hardly feel it. You know, compared to normal.”

“Let me get you something to drink.” Bucky gets off the bed and gets them both something to drink, helps Steve drink it so he can keep laying there (which he seems fairly happy about) and then moves back between his legs. Bucky is half hard from the delay but he gets more cream and puts it on Steve’s dick, a second layer, able to really get a hand on him— fucking finally— and is hard in a moment. Stroking Steve like this, jerking him off, adjusting his grip, getting Steve to actually twitch up into his fist and fuck his hand is hot as hell.

He takes the plug out and puts his cock into Steve with the cream free hand (yeah, he’s paying close attention to that, thank you very fucking much) and fucks him gently while he touches Steve’s cock.

“Guess the serum worked all over,” he almost says, but Steve won’t want to hear it. Doesn’t seem very happy with his super serum enhanced dick. “I like touching you,” he says, instead, and moves down to Steve’s balls, fondling them and making Steve squirm and tighten on his cock. “Gonna turn you over next time. Fuck you hard and you can take it.”

“Good,” Steve gasps. Steve’s balls are heavy with seed, pent up and ready to go again. Bucky touches him carefully, stays far away from the sensitive head of his dick, makes a loose O around the base of the shaft and jerks him off in time to his own thrusts. He gets the rhythm down, his cock in Steve, his hand connecting them, and it’s somehow more personal and intimate than anything they’ve done before. At least, Bucky thinks so.

“Oh,” Steve says, quietly. “I didn’t know it was like this,” he says, blinking rapidly. Bucky’s hand is still on him, gentle and guiding, controlling the pace, but the touch helps Steve know when to rock, it’s another point of connection between them, makes the sex and the thrusting all the better.

“You’re perfect. Don’t get lost in your head,” Bucky tells him, sternly. Steve isn’t fucking listening. Steve’s breath is a little uneven, sounds like he’s trying not to sob. And, it’s not because he hurts or wants to come, but because of how much closer they can be if the cage is off. This is _nothing_ compared to what all they could do if it was the two of them and nothing separating them.

Bucky can see every damned thought on Steve’s face as he makes himself miserable with guilt and confused shock.

Steve wanted to go bareback because he wanted to be closer to Bucky and have more of him. Bucky feels the same way. The truth is that he’s not against the cage anymore, not like he was when he first discovered it. But he would like options during sex, would like to be close and connected and have Steve be able to focus on just them instead of them and the pain of his cage. The rest of the time, if Steve feels like that’s what he needs, then fine. Bucky’s made peace with Steve wearing the cage on missions and on a day to day basis. 

He isn’t sure what to say to Steve right now. In this moment. Doesn’t know the right comforting words. And, anything he says will sound like he has an agenda. Steve puts a hand over his eyes, and Bucky is pretty sure he can see Steve’s lower lip trembling.

_Fuck this_. “Let’s get you turned over,” he says, and Steve, drops his arm, gives him a look.

“I only want you crying because it hurts in a way we both like. Not because you’re all maudlin. Turn over and I’ll fuck you happy again.” He pulls out with a groan and puts the plug in so Steve can turn over. Steve is staring at him, a million different emotions on his face.

“You ain’t gonna lose a drop, Steve. Good sluts keep their tips.” He winks at Steve.

He blushes furiously. “Wait. _What?_ You can’t say that.”

“Course I can,” he says, smiling smugly and Steve swears at him under his breath. He gets turned over though, ass in the air. Bucky smacks his cheeks a few times and Steve yelps and thrusts forward like he’s trying to get away… or fuck something. “God, should I spank you after this? Over my lap and let you come against my thigh?”

“Don’t say that,” Steve whispers.

“I’m not saying it. I’m making plans. Let’s get that plug out. I don’t like having to stop, Steve. Makes my balls throb.” He moves closer, has the back of his wrist bumping Steve’s ass as he fondles his own balls. Steve tries to look, watches as Bucky plays with himself. “Just want to make sure you get what you need. Fucked full of come.” Steve blushes hard, bites his lip, even presses back. No doubt about it, the lewder Bucky gets, the more Steve loves it.

He pulls the plug halfway out, watches Steve’s hole expand over the bulb of it and lets it get swallowed back inside. Steve makes a little sound, his hips twitch. “Are you getting sore, baby?”

“I’m okay. Great, actually.”

“Good,” Bucky says, and takes the plug out. Steve’s hole tries to close. It winks at him, clenching on nothing and come trembles at the rim, about to be pushed out. Bucky presses his cock inside, and the sound Steve makes almost makes him come.

“Missed me, huh?”

“Jesus. It’s all just so…_oh_, yes,” Steve gasps as Bucky puts his hands on Steve’s hips and holds him still, fucking into him deep and then pulling almost all the way out, watching Steve’s back and his hands to see how he likes it.

Steve’s legs open a little more, his hips tilt back. Bucky slides back in and Steve’s shoulders go tense. He puts a hand on Steve’s neck and Steve clenches on him hard, shuddering. Bucky fucks through it and Steve ripples around him, low noises pushed out of him as Bucky presses through the stretched muscles as they try to clamp down on him.

“You’re going to be sloppy and so open by the time we’re done.”

“Please make me come. Please touch me,” Steve begs.

“You close, sweetheart?”

“I think so. I’m not sure. It’s all a bit confused.”

“You’ll work it out,” he says, and squeezes Steve’s ass. Reassuring but not concerned. Dismissive because he thinks Steve likes that. Steve coming isn’t his problem. Isn’t that what Steve has said all along?

“Help me. Please. Buck.”

“How?”

“Don’t know…harder? Touch me? Your…your choice.”

“My choice is no, Steve.”

Steve cries out, his back arches like a cat as he tries to look back at Bucky, shocked to be denied. He’s blinking tears again. Those are good tears, the way he fucks himself back on Bucky’s cock more than enough evidence.

“I’m gonna wreck you, sweetheart. That’s what you wanted out of this. You’re going to be a sobbing, fucking _mess_ on my cock by the time this is over. You’ll cry in my arms and cling onto me so tight. We’ve gotta get you there. That’s the only way I’ll help you. Tell me that’s what you want,” he demands.

Steve looks at him over his shoulder as best he can. Nods quickly. 

“I know, my love,” he breaks eye contact and stares at Steve’s hole instead, watches as his cock slides in and out, touches the rim and Steve whimpers. Steve drops back down again, forehead on the bed, his shoulders are tense. He’s struggling mentally. He can practically feel Steve thinking and agonizing over some new incomprehensible bullshit.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Steve gasps, working up the courage to spit it out.

Bucky rams into him hard and Steve falls flat down to the bed in surprise. His hips grind into the bedding, instantly rutting and Bucky snarls at him, pulls him back off the bed and Steve is panting. _Now_ he’s crying. His cuffs jingle and he whispers a polite thank you to Bucky.

“You naughty slut. You’d jerk yourself off if you could. I can tell. You’d touch that dick, wouldn’t you? That’s not how you come and you fucking know it. You come on my cock or not at all. Say it.”

Steve shakes his head. His breathing is wet now. He can see from the way Steve moves his head that Steve is wiping his eyes on his forearm.

“There you go. You’ll be alright,” he says, sweetly and he wraps his hands around Steve’s shoulders, fucks him that way, more intense and oppressive and Steve lets out a steady sound of emotion, punctuated by Bucky’s thrusts. He’s not fucking him all that hard. It’s just a lot of emotion at the moment and that’s what breaks Steve down. It’s like a little hurt turned the waterworks on and now he can’t stop.

He just feels too much. He’s too sensitive and too brave, too loving and too wounded. God, Bucky loves him so fucking much. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Steve whispers.

“Tell me how you come.”

He pulls out of Steve’s ass and Steve cries out. “I come on your cock or not at all!” he gasps, and Bucky presses back in, rewarding him for getting it right.

“Good boy. God, Stevie. That’s fucking right you do.” And then his control is gone and he’s chasing his orgasm, fucking Steve hard and fast and coming deep inside him. He pulls out after a few moments and Steve wails at the loss. He gets him plugged and onto his side. He hasn’t come. Bucky gets him a tissue and wipes his face. Pulls him close, has Steve put his leg over Bucky’s hip. The distance between Steve’s cock and Bucky’s stomach is almost non-existent. He can feel the heat of him. Steve stares longingly between their bodies.

“Please. I want to…with you.”

“You want to rub that cock all over my stomach and make a mess on me?”

He nods. “Please,” he kisses Bucky, frantic with it. “I do. I want that. Need you. I want to be close to you.”

“You know it’s gonna be warm and slick on my skin, Stevie. It’s not going to hurt at all, sweetheart.”

“I know,” he says, sounding guilty. “I guess I’d just like to know what I’m missing. A bit.”

He smiles at Steve and kisses him on the nose like he’s cute. “I’m glad you want to try something new and I’m proud of you for telling me. So glad I’ll make an exception and let you. You keep your eyes on me the whole time. Wanna watch you do it then.”

He gets a bit of lube, smears a little on his stomach while Steve stares at him longingly. “Just like this. Come on, sweetheart.”

Steve kisses him and tries to move closer. Bucky stops him. Pulls away from the kiss. “No, I’m gonna watch you. You can kiss me after. From the moment you touch my skin to the last dribble of come I’m watching your face.”

“I want to kiss you,” he begs. Tears slide down his face.

“Kiss me after. Let’s get you feeling a little better.” Bucky slides his hand down to Steve’s hip and urges him closer, to get that final bit of distance crossed. Steve shifts,cock pressing gently against Bucky’s stomach. Steve groans, his cock spasming warningly.

“Open your eyes.” Bucky demands, and Steve blinks them open.

“Feel good?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna….so close,” he says, making tiny little rocking motions, sliding the glans and some of his shaft along Bucky’s skin.

“Harder, Steve. Faster,” he orders, and Bucky reaches for the plug, presses on it. Steve whimpers and starts rutting in hard grinds, bites his lip and blinks tears as he keeps looking at Bucky.

“Stop.” Bucky orders, just before the big moment. He lifts his hand away from the plug, too.

Steve stops with a harsh groan. He’s shaking, heaving. He doesn’t come but the head of his cock is leaking.

He kisses Bucky hard, mashing their lips together, shoving his tongue into Bucky’s mouth, showing him how turned on and desperate he is. He nips Bucky’s lip and exhales sharply as he bites kisses along Bucky’s neck. “No, no. Don’t ruin it,” Steve begs. “Promise you’ll let me. Please, please.”

“Brooklyn?” Bucky offers. He’s not making that fucking promise and Steve knows it. Steve pulls back, takes several long breaths. “Whenever you’re ready, Stevie. Didn’t I tell you I’d make sure it hurt just a little every time? Aren’t I a man of my word?”

“You’re a fucking asshole, that’s what you are.”

“You say this like it’s something new. Safeword, sweetheart. And then you can press up close and sweet and rub against me until you come, cock all warm and held between us. Or you stop yourself. You decide.”

Steve presses close again, soft, trying to control himself, to drag it out. The look of concentration on his face is the best thing Bucky’s ever seen. His nostrils flare when he gets a solid stroking motion going.

“You’re close, aren’t you?”

“Buck,” he gasps, eyes pleading. “I don’t want to safeword.”

“Then you gotta ruin it, baby,” he says, with all the faux-sympathy he can muster. “If I don’t catch you before it’s gonna happen then you stop yourself, yeah?” Bucky fists a hand in Steve’s hair so he answers. Steve’s body starts to tremble as he gets close. “Then I’m gonna fuck you again, baby.”

Steve presses closer, hips grinding and he moans low and desperate. “Fuck,” Steve grits out and thrusts between them, hard and desperate. “Yes, god,” he gasps.

“Stop,” Bucky orders, and Bucky shoves him to his back. Steve shakes, breath held. A long moment passes. A hiccoughing sob. Another endless moment and then Steve comes, presses his hands to his eyes as he releases, a pool of come spreading in a calm little puddle onto his stomach.

“Was it ruined?” Bucky asks, knowing the answer. He kisses Steve. He’s hard again. He pulls the plug out and shoves in, getting Steve to wrap his leg around his hip. Steve moans dejectedly as Bucky starts to fuck him. He puts all of his weight on Steve and Steve’s cock is trapped and rubbing.

“No! Oh god. It hurts, _Buck_.” Steve grinds upwards, squirming and trying to kiss Bucky, mouth open and wanting.

“I know, baby. But I need you now.” Steve’s come is wet between them and he makes sure to give a little extra shove in on every thrust, pressing against Steve’s balls. He gets his hands onto Steve’s ass, has him tight against him so Steve’s shaft and glans get as much friction as possible.

“Is it agony?” he asks, and almost comes, just from the question.

Steve pecks kisses to his jaw, whimpers like he loves it, each motion getting a little reply of sound. “I love it. I love you,” he breathes, quietly. Barely audible. “Hurts and you’re so close to me. Don’t stop.” Steve is shaking and he pulls Bucky tight, buries his face against his neck. He’s tense and pained for the first few minutes and Bucky goes agonizingly slowly so Steve can take it. Overstimulated and uncomfortable while Bucky carefully strokes inside of him. He’s soft and hot, wet and perfect inside.

“You can go faster now,” Steve finally says, tilting his hips up. He winces a little.

“Finally starting to feel it?”

He blushes. “Yeah. Getting sore now,” he says. “I…I like it.”

“You’re perfect, Steve. I love you. Thank you for telling me.”

“I love you too,” he says, just a breath of sound. Bucky comes again in Steve, plugs him back up and holds Steve close while he falls into a nap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left I think!


	12. Chapter 12

Steve wakes again up and Bucky is gone. Well, he isn’t in bed. He can hear him in the kitchen so he knows he hasn’t left. Is this the second time he’s slept? Steve stretches, and the ache in his body is glorious and different. He tests everything, touching his nipples and his balls, his cock. He slides his fingers down to the base of the plug and touches that too. God, he wants to stay like this forever.

How many times has Bucky come? Steve pulls gently on the plug and sucks in a breath at how sore his hole is. He lets it slip back into place. He doesn’t know when to take it out. He wants to take it out. Doesn’t he?

His fingers are still there and he checks to make sure there’s a towel under him before he pulls at it again. He bites his lip. He wishes he could see what it would look like when the come and lube all slides out of him.

His cock is hard and touching the plug makes him even harder. He should stop touching himself back there, but the need to feel, to understand just what’s been made of him compels him onwards. He’s not sure he could do this with Bucky here, anyway.

He needs this to be _his_. He isn’t sure why he’s feeling so nervous about it right now, but he is. He pulls the plug out and he tilts his hips up but come is already trickling out of him. “Fuck,” he gasps, sinking his fingers into himself. Two fingers deep inside, just feeling how hot and slick and open he is. How sore and wrong it is to be this open and used.

He lets his fingers play along the rim and dip inside, strokes through the mess inside, so much come and lube. So much _come_. He reeks of sex and the things they did. He wants to see his fingers but can’t bear to take them out so he uses the other hand too, slips three fingers into himself, two from one hand and one from the other. He gives a tentative pull, curious if he could be more open.

He spasms inside, feels a gush on his fingers. “No,” he manages, and brings his fingers up to look at them, to see it glinting in the light and to feel the texture. He slides his finger over the head of his cock and shudders as come drips onto his hand from his aching cock. He isn’t himself. He doesn’t know who he is.

This is a lot to process. Liking this, wanting this. “Bucky,” he calls and hears footsteps. Bucky has a smile on his face as he makes it to the door, a sandwich on a plate in his metal hand and a giant glass of orange juice in the other. He sets them both down and comes closer. He barely glances at Steve’s fingers buried in his ass. He’s looking at Steve’s face, his smile disappearing.

“Are you alright, sweetheart? You’re pale and pink at once. Talk to me,” he orders, kissing Steve’s forehead.

“I wanted to know what it was like. To feel it. You. And how it was down there. Inside me. And I don’t know what to do now. I’m scared.” What a stupid thing to say. _Scared_? Is he? Talk about an overstatement. This isn’t aliens or actually harmful, it’s just his body.

“Stevie. My love. Why are you scared?” he asks, pressing kisses to Steve’s cheeks while he waits for him to answer.

The shock of all of this makes him blunt. Someone just has to _know_. And Steve has to know. He needs some way to articulate all of the feelings inside and the idea of saying it aloud is somehow less terrifying than everything rattling around inside him. 

“I know the cage is wrong. But, this is wrong too. And I _love_ this. Doing this for one day makes me feel like I can’t live without it. Like I should always be plugged up and ready for you and… how fucked up can one person be? The cage made me think of myself one way. A way I was used to. But, this would make me someone different. Is it worse?”

Bucky looks at him. He looks sad. “Stevie, we have to find a way to get you past the blame and the idea of wrongness. It’s just sex. We aren’t hurting anyone. And this is for us, we both deserve good things. You want me to feel good, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“And I want you to feel good. We’ve fucking earned that. You like getting fucked and keeping my come? Well, good, because that fucking works for me. You want to be all locked up and miserable, make those little sounds when I start kissing you? Great. That’s good, too. If this is the thing that gets us sent to Hell, well, Christ. At least it will be filled with interesting people. There’s enough people walking around the world to make me think we aren’t the only ones getting it on.”

Steve shrugs. “True.” He licks his lips.

“Steve. They sell all this crap for a reason. There aren’t hundreds of types of butt plugs if no one is using them. When it comes to this, you aren’t unique.”

“You may need to remind me of that every now and again.”

“I’ll start putting up really inappropriate post-it notes with positive sex affirmations and we can terrify anyone who dares come visit.”

“And, similar but kind of changing the subject….So, you don’t want to get rid of the cage?”

“Honestly? The honest to God truth is that if I can have you like this sometimes, like we did earlier, maybe when it comes off for a shower or something, then I’m fine. I’ll be best friends with the cage. I just love you, Steve. I love everything about you and I always have. You being here, covered in my come, full of it, wearing the plug I put in you, letting me have you… I have no complaints. I’m the luckiest man alive I get to have you at all.”

Steve takes a deep breath. “You know, I was really working myself up to get freaked out and panic and you’ve just ruined that.”

Bucky smiles at him. Kisses him on the lips. “Good. Did I mention how fucking hot it was to ruin your orgasm?” Steve blushes. “Can I feel you?” Bucky asks, gaze straying down Steve’s body, voice getting lower as his interest is drawn lower.

“Do you want to?” he whispers, feeling shy about it. And he needs the praise, needs to hear that this is good and makes Bucky happy.

“Of course I do. I feel a little….” Bucky seems to be thinking, looking for the right word as he watches his own hand slide along the inside of Steve’s thigh and then stroke lightly over his fucked open hole.“How careful should I be? You look sore, baby. You look… god, you look incredible. I love you here. You want to wear a cage that’s fine. I’ve said it before but I mean it. I’m not obsessed with your cock, Steve. But this hole, just _here_,” he says, letting his finger press inside. “Jesus, Stevie, this you can’t lock away from me. I was buying you things and looking at all of this stuff online and by the end of it I realized I was thinking of _this_ as mine,” he says, arranging his fingers so he can cover Steve’s hot, swollen opening, pressing gently, but hard enough to make Steve shift restlessly against him. “Not just you as a person but you as a… home for my cock or my fingers, just my entertainment and to make me feel good. Make us both feel good. But, sometimes, sometimes I don’t care all that much about you feeling good. I want you to be happy and I love you, but sometimes I just want you here and I’m not thinking of sex as something for us to enjoy together but something I get to have when I use you here. How’s that for a fucked up confession?”

“Because it’s yours?” Steve repeats, voice shaking.

“Yeah, Steve,” he whispers.

“Then you should fuck me,” he says, because Bucky is hard in his underwear. “Fuck _it_. If it’s yours.”

Bucky frowns. Steve knows he’s thinking about Steve referring to his body as an it. If this is a problem or something he needs to address.

“Hey. I just want you to use me, this isn’t some new weird issue. I just didn’t want to say ass.”

Bucky quirks a smile at him and stands up. He gets a towel from the stack and takes the other one away. “I’m not sure I’ll ever figure out where you’re drawing the line on this puritanical stuff. And, just so you know, there is a cover on the mattress. You’re not ruining our brand new bed.”

Steve blushes. Bucky palms himself through his underwear as Steve touches himself again. “Get your ass to the edge of the bed so I can fuck you like this,” Bucky says. God forbid, Bucky ever figures out just what it does to him when he’s talked to like that. From the lecherous way he’s looking at Steve and touching himself, maybe he already knows.

Steve gets turned around, tries to keep his hand over his hole to keep some of Bucky inside him. But most of it’s gone. “Pull your legs up, hold them open,” Bucky orders, not even looking at Steve’s face. He’s staring intently at Steve’s hole. He pulls his underwear down, under his balls so his cock is out. He slicks himself up quickly and presses into Steve’s.

He fucks Steve hard and fast for a bit, watching his cock slide in and out. He strokes up Steve’s perineum but doesn’t get near his cock and balls. Like he said, he’s not interested in it right now. Steve has no choice but to believe him. “There you go. You’re looking sore now. How do you feel?” Bucky pulls his cock out, touches Steve where he’s hot and aching.

He can’t answer that question. The answer that comes to mind, that wants to spill out of him isn’t actually all that useful. He turns his head to the side. Bucky touches Steve’s stomach, finger sliding through the small pool of come that’s leaked out of him.

Bucky slams back in, hard and deep. It steals his breath. It makes his legs begin to tremble as Bucky does it over and over again, relentless. Steve starts out with little panting breaths each time Bucky bottoms out. Moaning exhales every time he withdraws, but it doesn’t take long before he’s grunting with each thrust, eyes closed so he can have the anticipation, increase the intensity even more. If he can’t see it then he can’t relax, and he stays a little tighter, it hurts a little more when Bucky slams deep.

He loves that. Bucky is slowing. He pauses, half out of Steve and runs a finger around the rim. “Puffy. Swollen. How much do you hurt?”

He wants more. God, does he want more.

Steve shakes his head. It hurts but it’s not pain like the cage is pain. There’s softness in this and connection. He’s hot and he aches and all he can feel is how big and hard Bucky’s cock is. He can feel the heft of Bucky’s balls and how good it is to have them grind against his perineum. It’s all just so overwhelming and focused.

“Come with me, Stevie. Let me see you touch yourself and then we’ll get you all safe again.” Steve touches himself, wraps his hand around his cock, moans at how good it feels and how much harder and desperately Bucky pounds into him just from seeing him touch himself. Steve lets himself come, Bucky groaning and coming from Steve’s passage milking him with each spasm.

He’s careful as he pulls out of Steve. He fills him a bath and gets him all cleaned up before dropping to his knees and putting the cage on, giving Steve’s dick a small kiss before he locks it tidily away.


End file.
